Another one bites the dust: Guardian Tech
Posted by Danny Whatmough on Nov 11, 2009
It’s no secret that the traditional media industry is in chaos at the moment. Today, the tech sector felt the force of this with the announcement that the Guardian’s Thursday print Technology supplement is to close at the end of the year.
This came alongside news of over 100 job cuts at the Guardian, following revenue losses of £33m.
As if this wasn’t enough doom and gloom for the Guardian Media Group, yesterday it was revealed that the Observer, whilst still suriving, will lose its monthly Music, Sport and Woman magazines.
Declining advertising revenues, combined with more news being available for free online, not to mention the rise of professional blogging, has really hit the media sector and the tech industry is no clearly no different.
So what’s the answer? Rupert Murdoch has made no secret of plans for properties in his media portfolio, including The Times, which will move to a paywall charging structure online from next Spring.
The Guardian’s technology editor Charles Arthur was hinting at a similar outcome this afternoon on Twitter (see right).
Whilst Arthur was quick to point out that charging separately for online technology news wasn’t currently being considered, it does beg the question: would you pay for specialised content? And if so, how much would you pay? And what would you want to receive?
Only last week, we covered news about how NMA are to begin charging for subscriber-only content.
Dan also covered research recently, which suggests that if the publishers think we are all going to start paying for online content, then they should really think again…
What do you think? Would you pay for tech news from the Guardian? Or do we already have enough access to content online that the print supplement was a superfluous?
Comment by Ciarán November 11, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
No, not as such. I am/have been a big fan of Guardian Tech, but have felt that the Thursday supplement was going down hill. I tend to find that most of the interesting stuff happens on the Tech section of the website, so I'm not sure I'll miss the supplement (I certainly hadn't been buying it as religiously as I used to.
Of course if everything goes behind a pay-wall, it becomes a different matter, but for the moment? No.
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Comment by Danny Whatmough November 12, 2009 @ 5:40 am
I'm totaly in agreement Ciaran. Increasingly I can get through the print supplement in next to no time. I think the content is quite random most of the time, whereas the website is great.
Maybe this is why it is disappearing…?
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[...] As we reported last week, more than 100 editorial and commercial jobs are to be cut at Guardian News & Media and the Guardian’s Thursday Technology print section will cease publication at the end of the year. [...]