Local News Oxford Mail Premium

THe current website is unusable due to pop ups and crashing, I don’t know if it works if you pay?
 
I guess that all newspapers are trying to work out how to survive financially as fewer and fewer people buy the printed version.
Some have charged for content and some gave tried the advertising route (or a mixture of both)
In the digital world I guess that people just dont like paying for music, Local newspapers online, films etc
 
Wallop said:
That's ridiculous, a bit like Wetherspoons putting a roped off VIP area in their pubs and seeking to charge more. Can't polish a turd.
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Well they don't charge at all at the moment. In theory I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to paying for good local reporting, but the OM is so bad and the website is unusable.
 
What it shows is that they had no strategy for the digital age.

They went for the mass advertising/pop-up video route, which has made the website slow, clunky, and (to some) unusable. In addition, there have been layoffs and a dramatic decline in quality (I swear their primary source of information seems to be Twitter). Now to ask for additional funds for what appears to be a failing enterprise seems pretty desperate for all concerned.
 
Left Wing Cross said:
What it shows is that they had no strategy for the digital age.

They went for the mass advertising/pop-up video route, which has made the website slow, clunky, and (to some) unusable. In addition, there have been layoffs and a dramatic decline in quality (I swear their primary source of information seems to be Twitter). Now to ask for additional funds for what appears to be a failing enterprise seems pretty desperate for all concerned.
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One of the 'Premium' news stories is a report about the hygiene rating of The Egg Shop - sign me up!
 
Left Wing Cross said:
What it shows is that they had no strategy for the digital age.

They went for the mass advertising/pop-up video route, which has made the website slow, clunky, and (to some) unusable. In addition, there have been layoffs and a dramatic decline in quality (I swear their primary source of information seems to be Twitter). Now to ask for additional funds for what appears to be a failing enterprise seems pretty desperate for all concerned.
Click to expand...
Yes, it's worrying though as local reporting is important , if its done well. They should be all over the OUFC takeover talk, digging into it
 
circulation has been declining for years but accelerated recently. They are down to less than 7000 copies per issue (2013 16000, 2008 23000), but not helped by not having a coherent strategy. Having a free to access website but loading the page with ads (the subscription idea they launched last year basically halved the load time of the page by taking away 80% of ads) just put people off - or at least made them use ad-blockers.
The sub they launched last year could have worked, but was too half-hearted. Why would I pay a sub and only want to get rid of some of the adverts (not all) and not get any other real benefit from it (stupidity like the Banbury/Witney papers having the same content, but not the ad/subscription model meaning you didn't have to bother). Adding subscription only content would work if it was good content, but its not - though the lack of quality is not really surprising given that they forced any staff earning more than £18k to take a 15% pay cut, which of course meant the good ones left and got jobs elsewhere.
 
werthersoriginal said:
Yes, it's worrying though as local reporting is important , if its done well. They should be all over the OUFC takeover talk, digging into it
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they haven't dug into anything for years. back when Thomas Guerriero was doing his dodgy thing at Oxford City I told them to do a story. Nothing happened. I then went back and gave them all the detail, links, reports, etc still nothing happened. Even after his arrest they reported the line that he was "ill"
 
OUFCGav said:
they haven't dug into anything for years. back when Thomas Guerriero was doing his dodgy thing at Oxford City I told them to do a story. Nothing happened. I then went back and gave them all the detail, links, reports, etc still nothing happened. Even after his arrest they reported the line that he was "ill"
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It’s well worth listening to the T’Manor’s podcast with David Pritchard about his reporting for the OM. It gives you a peek behind the curtain. He essentially says the OM have to report something on Oxford City, Banbury United etc from time to time but the bosses don’t really like it as it doesn’t get the hits that United stories do.

There was a time when journalism was a noble profession but why go for genuinely good and well researched stories when you can sit at your desk and write a piece of clickbait about ‘fans of X react to Y’ or ‘you won’t believe what this Z looks like’ advertorial. The OM is no different. Their main lead the other day was essentially an advert for Zoopla. No one will pay money for it be that online or in paper form in the next decade.

It does beg the question who will hold the club to account and ask the difficult questions to the manager and directors. Supporters groups can only get so close. It may be a case of you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone with the OM ...
 
unification said:
It’s well worth listening to the T’Manor’s podcast with David Pritchard about his reporting for the OM. It gives you a peek behind the curtain. He essentially says the OM have to report something on Oxford City, Banbury United etc from time to time but the bosses don’t really like it as it doesn’t get the hits that United stories do.

There was a time when journalism was a noble profession but why go for genuinely good and well researched stories when you can sit at your desk and write a piece of clickbait about ‘fans of X react to Y’ or ‘you won’t believe what this Z looks like’ advertorial. The OM is no different. Their main lead the other day was essentially an advert for Zoopla. No one will pay money for it be that online or in paper form in the next decade.

It does beg the question who will hold the club to account and ask the difficult questions to the manager and directors. Supporters groups can only get so close. It may be a case of you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone with the OM ...
Click to expand...

Hopefully the funding for BBC Oxford continues long term.
 
OUFCGav said:
they haven't dug into anything for years. back when Thomas Guerriero was doing his dodgy thing at Oxford City I told them to do a story. Nothing happened. I then went back and gave them all the detail, links, reports, etc still nothing happened. Even after his arrest they reported the line that he was "ill"
Click to expand...
I'd guess that the OM's legal department have pretty much cut down all investigative journalism as being too expensive to defend if then sued for libel. So instead we get ex-post news stories.

After all some club owners like Paul Scally scour message boards for troublemakers and/or an opportunity to shout down any legitimate concerns with legal threats.
 
MarkG said:
I'd guess that the OM's legal department have pretty much cut down all investigative journalism as being too expensive to defend if then sued for libel. So instead we get ex-post news stories.

After all some club owners like Paul Scally scour message boards for troublemakers and/or an opportunity to shout down any legitimate concerns with legal threats.
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Maybe.
 
unification said:
It’s well worth listening to the T’Manor’s podcast with David Pritchard about his reporting for the OM. It gives you a peek behind the curtain. He essentially says the OM have to report something on Oxford City, Banbury United etc from time to time but the bosses don’t really like it as it doesn’t get the hits that United stories do.

There was a time when journalism was a noble profession but why go for genuinely good and well researched stories when you can sit at your desk and write a piece of clickbait about ‘fans of X react to Y’ or ‘you won’t believe what this Z looks like’ advertorial. The OM is no different. Their main lead the other day was essentially an advert for Zoopla. No one will pay money for it be that online or in paper form in the next decade.

It does beg the question who will hold the club to account and ask the difficult questions to the manager and directors. Supporters groups can only get so close. It may be a case of you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone with the OM ...
Click to expand...
Haven't got around to that one yet (backlog of podcasts due to not commuting) but it doesn't surprise me. That whole Daily Mail thing of inflaming the 'Below The Line' to get repeat traffic - their recent coverage of the LTNs shows the hallmarks of that.

But does show the importance of fan vigilance rather than hoping the paper will uncover it.
 
I`ll assume they are owned by Newsquest same as our local rag? :poop:
"Journalism" ,and I use the term very loosely , is now trawling local FB pages, creating a clickbait headline and then integrating stories from elsewhere in the Newsquest "family".
We could do it well! :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
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Oxford Mail make a lot of money from advertising and like Essex said, clicks to the site which encourages the company’s to shell out their money..

They have hardly anyone in the office, partly down to lockdown etc but doing any actual journalism is way down the list of priorities for them.

It’s all about the Facebook page and getting the hits..
 
"New incognito window" is your friend......are they trying to get round it??
 
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