ARLA/CLUSTER: Revista de Rádio disponíveis na Internet

[João Gonçalves Costa]

Many printed publications have closed in recent years and increasingly the publication of specialist information is becoming web only.

Around the world printed publications have been closing as owners grapple with the long term impact of the Internet on their business coupled with the short term recession.

Over the last decade web sites have been steadily taking both editorial material and the all important advertising from traditional media whose owners are now struggling to find new business models to survive in the modern world. 

An item on Wiki says that 120 newspapers closed their doors in the first three months of 2009.

Free electronic publication has been one approach but this is not a panacea. If you give away your editorial content how do you make money? The obvious answer is advertising but advertisers will naturally expect lower rates for web ads and there is the question of being able to provide verifiable circulation figures. 

If your end product is a PDF, how do you know who many copies will get emailed by people to friends and how many recipients actually read it. If someone has paid 90 pence ($1:50) for a newspaper you know they'll read it and see the adverts, if they get a free PDF email attachment you can't be as sure that they'll actually bother to open the attachment.

Charging for electronic publications is another approach but people are currently reluctant to pay anything for web based information.

People tend to copy any electronic media to give to friends which tends to undermine the straight subscription model.

Among the free specialist radio publications available on the web are:

WorldRadio Online (CQ communications Inc)
http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/WorldRadio.html

HAM-MAG
http://www.ham-mag.com/

Amsat-India Newsletter
http://www.amsatindia.org/Newsletter/

K9YA Telegraph
http://www.k9ya.org/

  

Related URL's

Newspaper Death Watch
http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/

Wiki - Journalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism