Followthemedia reports on Eric Schmidt’s address to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) yesterday, in which the Google boss said he believed a mixture of ad-supported free content, micropayments and access-all-areas subscription will have to be included on the newspaper website of the future.
But according to FTM, Schmidt didn’t suggest enough ways for Google and newspaper publishers to work together – but then the publishers in the audience didn’t challenge him enough either.
“He [Schmidt] basically believes a newspaper will have its print and internet numbers right if readership is at least five times higher – preferably 10 times higher – on the web than it is in print,” says FTM.
“But again, he didn’t address, and no one asked him, how print was to stay in business with so much of the advertising spend diverted to the web and how maybe that 5:1 or 10:1 ratio could mean that the print financials were no longer viable.”
Also, a full but unofficial transcript of the Q&A at PoynterOnline (with removal of incomplete sentences, Julie Moos notes): ‘Transcript of Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Q&A at NAA‘