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Healdsburg entrepreneur has idea to keep news organizations profitable
Published: Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 4:03 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 4:03 a.m.
"We're talking about saving journalism.
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Ridgely Evers, along with partner Alan Mutter, is pitching a plan to rescue newspapers by selling targeted advertising based on the interests of online readers.
Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesFacts
MAKING MONEY
How can newspapers make money on the Web?
Three proposals were presented to publishing executives last month at a closed-door meeting organized by the Newspaper Association of America:
Source: Nieman Journalism Lab
I think it's going to happen."
Technology entrepreneur Ridgely Evers
The beleaguered U.S. newspaper business is looking for a white knight to ride to its rescue.
Could Healdsburg technology entrepreneur Ridgely Evers be that guy?
That’s the buzz on media blogs following a closed-door meeting of top newspaper executives last month in Chicago.
As print ads plummet, layoffs grow and papers shut down, industry leaders are searching for ways to halt the slide.
Evers and his partner, news veteran Alan Mutter, are pitching a plan to rescue newspapers by selling targeted advertising based on the interests of online readers.
Their ViewPass concept, first unveiled at the secret Chicago meeting, was leaked to a media blog and has been getting attention ever since. Last week, Evers and Mutter held follow-up sessions with publishers in New York and Washington, D.C.
“We’re talking about saving journalism,” said Evers, 58. “I think it’s going to happen.”
Evers and Mutter may not have the answer to journalism’s predicament, but it’s clear that newspapers must make better use of the Internet, said Rob Gunnison, a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
“They’ll have to adapt in the right ways,” Gunnison said. “If they stay stuck on what they’re doing they’ll lose.”
Evers may seem an unlikely savior for newspapers.
He joined software maker Intuit when it had just 35 employees and led the team that created QuickBooks, the world’s most popular accounting software. He later headed a string of Internet startups — including an early online news company — and launched a technology venture fund.
Evers bought a Healdsburg ranch in 1982 and planted it with olive trees imported from Italy. Today, Evers and his wife, Colleen McGlynn, own DaVero Sonoma Inc., a maker of extra-virgin olive oil, vinegar, wine and specialty foods.
In 2007, Evers launched NetBooks, a Rohnert Park startup that sells small business accounting software. NetBooks moved to San Francisco last year and changed its name to WorkingPoint.
Evers’ newest venture grew out of conversations with Mutter, a former news editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and San Francisco Chronicle who left the print sector to start online media ventures in Silicon Valley.
“We lamented the state of newspapers in general and just started batting ideas about,” Evers said.
It’s certain that U.S. dailies need help. Newspapers are losing subscribers faster than ever, as readers turn to the Internet for their news, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, which tracks nearly 400 dailies.
Average circulation dropped 7 percent in the six months ending March 31 compared with the same period a year ago. It’s the steepest fall since circulation began to slip in the early 1990s.
Meanwhile, print advertising is down sharply with the economy’s slump.
Over the past two years, the newspaper industry has seen $11 billion in ad revenue evaporate, wiping out almost a quarter of its advertising base, according to an annual report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The slide is continuing. Several major publishers reported ad sales plunged 25 to 35 percent in the first quarter.
While newspapers’ Web sites are attracting more readers, online ad sales aren’t making up for losses on the print side.
Last year, roughly half of newspaper readers accessed the papers’ online sites for at least some of their news, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. But the Internet produced less than 10 percent of the newspaper industry’s $38 billion in advertising revenue last year, according to the report.
As advertising dwindles on the printed page, publishers have slashed costs — reducing the physical dimensions of the paper, the space devoted to news and the staff that reports the news, sells the ads, prints the paper and delivers it.
U.S. newspapers shed more than 14,000 workers last year through layoffs and buyouts, and they’ve cut more than 10,000 jobs so far this year, according to Paper Cuts, a Web site that tracks sector employment.
Large dailies including the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer have ceased print operations. The Chronicle and Boston Globe warned they may shut down.
But newspapers aren’t going the way of the dinosaur, Evers said.
“They’re not in as bad shape as some would suggest,” he said. “We’re going to have newspapers for a long time to come.”
Evers’ plan is aimed at increasing papers’ revenues from online ads.
With ViewPass, online readers would register for free access to articles on the Web sites of member newspapers. The system would track each reader’s activity on the sites and use that information to sell ads targeted to their interests.
For example, a reader who frequently visited the auto page at the New York Times would get ads for new cars, Evers said.
Superior targeting could allow newspapers to more than double their online ad rates, according to the ViewPass team.
In addition, ViewPass would be owned by member publishers, so they wouldn’t need to split their profits with online partners.
While advertisers would know readers’ online habits, they wouldn’t know their identities, said Evers, who has run an Internet security company.
“You have to design it so you never disclose an individual’s identity,” he said.
The system would allow newspapers to charge online readers for access, but that model won’t save publishers, he said.
“The question is how to monetize journalism,” Evers said. “Do you ask the consumer to pay directly or ask the advertiser to pay for the privilege of reaching the consumer? A pay wall will not work because the next generation of consumers is allergic to them.”
Evers and Mutter are seeking $500,000 from publishers to get the system ready for launch. They won’t identify the newspapers they’re talking to, “but this has received a very attentive and enthusiastic response,” Evers said.
The Newspaper Association of America, which organized the Chicago meeting, wouldn’t comment on ViewPass or the other proposals made to publishers.
“The group listened to executives from companies representing various new models for obtaining value from newspaper content online,” said John Sturm, the association’s president.
Evers said the publishers at May’s meeting are ready for change.
“There are very few publishers that think of themselves as newspapers to the exclusion of anything else,” he said. “They haven’t been living in a cave.”
[END_CREDIT_0]You can reach Staff Writer Steve Hart at 521-5205 or steve.hart@pressdemocrat.com.
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