The last few days, I’ve been in a full-blown polymudgeon freakout over the amazing teaser rate offered by the Wall Street Journal.  Having just upped my annual renewal for $349, combined print and online, I saw an ad offering the same year-long services for only $140.  Of course, the catch is you need to be a “new” subscriber.  I called WSJ customer service to argue that such a steep jump wasn’t fair, and they should cut my renewal rate a bit.  The poor rep couldn’t do anything about that, so I tried to puzzle out with her how I could game the system, which I’ll get more into below.  The more interesting question is whether such steep new customer discounts can produce profitable long-term clients. 

 

Teaser rates are as old as publishing, but I think I would have noticed such a steep discount in the past, so the discounts have probably been increased during the recession.  Most newspapers receive a much lower proportion of their revenues from subscriptions than the WSJ, relying more proportionately on advertising and newsstand sales, so I thought I’d compare with two other papers of near-equivalent reach and reputation, the Washington Post and New York Times. So from their own online subscription pages (with phone follow-up for the renewal rate at the Washington Post), the comparative discount follow:

 

            New Weekly                Term of            Weekly Rate    Discount

            Subscriber Rate            Reduced Rate   for Renewals

 

WSJ     $ 2.59/week                 54                    6.71                 61%

WP      $1.11                           26                    4.41                 75%

NYT    $6.70                           12                    13.4                 50%

 

I adjusted the WSJ subscription teaser rate from the advertised rate to account for the 2 free weeks that are included.  The WSJ subscription is combined print and online, while the Washington Post and NY Times offer most of their content free online, so the rates should be comparable.  The one major difference is that the WP and NYT subscription includes new issues 7 days a week, while the WSJ is only 6 days.

 

For a full year, the WSJ and WP offers are nearly equivalent.  The WSJ’s introductory rate offers 61% for a full year.  The WP would be 75% off for half year, and then full price for the rest of the year, resulting in an effective full year discount of 62.5%.  So what do these steep discounts mean to renewal conversions?

 

The first thought is an obvious increased incentive to game the system.  Since I live in a household with two adults, it appears from talking to the customer rep that I could cancel the existing subscription, get the new subscriber rate through the other name.  Then repeat in reverse at the end of the year, because the definition of a new subscriber counts those who have lapsed several months before. (I didn’t get the exact period, but it’s less than a year.)

 

Most customers wouldn’t take the time this switching would cost, so I think the more likely occurrence is anger at the first increased bill, followed by immediate cancellation.  In the language of economics, newspaper subscriptions aren’t a network product, where the customer is locked-in once they have used for a given period of time.  They may become accustomed to a favorite columnist, feature or slant of a given paper, but currently many of those are offered free online.  Even if some papers begin to charge for their prime content, there will be plenty that do not. 

 

The basic problem for newspapers remains the same.  Their marginal cost of delivery has dropped to near-zero.  Innovations for content aggregation and presentation seem to me the only way up.  One possibility might be a daily customizable, question-driven news aggregator, to reduce the required browsing time, and help organize information into knowledge.  That might be a service worth paying for, but such a scheme would be facilitated by a micro-payment system.

Suggested Memorial Day music.

 

Joyce DiDonato, The Deepest Desire.

 

The renowned mezzo-soprano with the compelling voice performs songs from three American composers, Bernstein, Copland and Heggie.  All the selections are settings of the words of American poets and writers, exploring life, love, death and the search for spirituality. . 

The tile selection, The Deepest Desire, by Jake Heggie, is subtitled Four Dramatic Songs of Praise, and chronicles the successful search for meaning and spirituality of Sister Helen Prejean, in her own words.  Sister Helen Prejean’s work with death row inmates inspired her book Dead Man Walking, and the resultant movie and Jake Heggie opera. (Ms. DiDonato has performed the Sister Helen role in the opera.)  The four pieces for piano, flute and mezzo-soprano, proceeds from the calling, through the struggle, to the epiphanic, “Is there life before death?”.  The concluding song, Primary Colors, is the most effective blending of the three performers, as well as the most inspiring, describing, in the composer’s words, “the peaceful contentment that comes from having journeyed well.”  

The five Bernstein songs are settings of love poems, including two by Rainer Maria Rilke, which are the only two pieces by non-Americans on this CD.  The interesting parallels between Bernstein and Rilke might be material for future meditation, but for now I’ll concentrate on what I consider the highlights of the selections.

Aaron Copland’s song cycle of Emily Dickinson poems cover the breadth of the poet’s emotion, from nature, loves found and lost, poetic inspiration found and lost (or at least doubted, as in “When they come back if blossoms do”).  The cycle concludes with The Chariot, the poet’s personal depiction of the afterlife.

The initial impetus for this post was an up-to-now un-noticed connection between “The Chariot”, and a composition from a more modern lady, Liz Phair.  Emily Dickinson focuses on the driver and his easing of the transition:

 

Because I would not stop for Death

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality.

 

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility.

 ….

The Chariot, 1856, by Emily Dickinson

 

Ms. Phair’s version of the initial moments of the afterlife is a bit more frenetic, but she displays a similar concern for the mode of transportation, and in particular getting left behind.

 

As I stumble into bed, I curse the devil in my head

And if I die before I wake, I hope the Lord won’t hesitate

To pluck my coffin from the ground

He need not heed the neighbors now

And throw me up for all to see,…

…

Well I don’t know, but I’ve been told

The road to heaven is paved with gold
And if I die before I wake, I need a ride

From you.

 

Ride, 1998, words and music by Liz Phair

from whitechocolatespaceegg, Matador 1998.

 

The notion of catching a ride to heaven is as old as the concept of heaven, but it is interesting that both these women focus on the being driven part, despite their somewhat different backgrounds.  Contrast this with another well-known male New England poet, who at the time had no intention of relinquishing the reins.

 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, 1922, Robert Frost

 

Maybe it’s not gender, but time and place that explains the difference.  From the traditional, gentle ride to heaven prior to the Civil War, to the feeling of control and choice in the 1920s, to a more current attitude of chaos and drift.

 

Postscript:  For another Dickinson connection, check out the Vigilantes of Love, Blister Soul, in which they spin out a first line from Dickinson, A certain slant of light, into a beautiful pop song.

This week attended the free performance of Oberlin Conservatory students at the Kennedy Center, part of the on-going Conservatory Project, which concludes on Monday, May 25.  If you follow the link, you can download an archived video of the performance (requires RealPlayer download). 

It is definitely recommended, particularly if you like lively performances from a variety of styles, from the Baroque (Couperin) to the modern (Mayuzumi).  There were pretty, flashing romantic pieces, Boehm for flute, and Liszt for piano, a Beethoven string quarter, and a challenging new student composition.

The highlight for me was Bunraku by Toshiro Mayuzumu, a solo cello performance by Arnie Tanimoto.  Bunraku is a traditional form of Japanese puppet theater, which may explain the jerky rhythms and experimental bowing and plucking techniques in some parts.  Other parts had swooping phrases with dramatic repetition, somewhat reminiscent to me of Benjamin Britten, if he had used Japanese harmonies and sonorities anyway. 

The recent student composition was the most challenging piece of the evening.  The Four Falsehoods, by Ran Duan (Composer’s Notes included below), was a tone poem, or more accurately a tone drama, for soprano, violin, cello, two various woodwinds, and piano played by the composer.  Alas, as we had arrived late, I didn’t have a chance to read the composer’s notes till afterwards, they are very helpful to following the “action”.   The piece was interesting, but in summation, I found it too busy.  A chaotic overlapping of experimental sounds and themes, which perhaps was the point.  But I prefer to be given a little space to absorb the dissonance.  Nonetheless, “too many notes” has been a common criticism of fine compositions by musical dilettantes in the past, so feel free to ignore this one.

 

Composer’s Notes                               by Ran Duan

Copied from the program to accompany a performace of his composition,“The Four Falsehoods”, at the Kennedy Center, May 19, 2009.

 

“I often search for the meaning of truth and wonder which part of my life is real or not.  Throughout my life, things that are mysterious, beautiful, enjoyable, funny, and scary have fascinated me.  However, after a moment (perhaps as short as five minutes or as long as two years), I find myself in disbelief that these things are not real.  In Four Falsehoods, I am trying to present these unreal things, the falsehoods.  In the first movement, the singer who is portrayed as a magician whispers words that do not have any meaning.  She appears to articulate some magical spell while the instrumentalists reflect upon the spell as if it is real.  But by the end of the piece, the ensemble disappears alluding that the magician doesn’t need them any longer or perhaps they don’t exist at all.”

Noted an interesting link between two weekend articles, from rather disparate sources. "What a Mom Wants", by Megan Basham in the Friday Wall Street Journal, and "Hacking the Spaces", by Johannes Grenzfurthner and Frank Apunkt at Monochrom (pointed out by Cory Doctorow blogging on boingboing). 

Ms. Basham leads with a salient characteristic of the current recession, namely that 80% of the layoffs to date have been male.  The Mother’s Day angle is that many of these families are making do with the mother’s putting in more hours at work and the fathers taking care of home and kids.  The author has collected some evidence that social liberals see this trend as an unforeseen positive impact of the downturn, and are exploring ways to retain the structure when the economy rebounds.  But a more interesting countertrend is the individual stories that appear to indicate the women don’t like the new social structure, while many of the men are fine with it.  It seems the problem isn’t that too many women are forced to stay home with the kids, but too many men are forced to go to work.

Few of us enjoy going to work on a regular basis.  Even those of us fortunate enough to enjoy our actual tasks a majority of the time, would prefer another environment to do them.  Or a shorter trip to it, or a different set of co-workers, or better lighting, or many other improvements. 

Now we get to the second article, which is all about one outgrowth of the 60’s counter-culture, which was (and is) the tech culture’s attempt to re-invent the workplace.  The conclusion of the article is that capitalism is too efficient to ignore the good ideas that arose.  Rather the system co-opts those structures that perpetuate it. 

“Sociological termed "third spaces" are spaces that break through the dualistic scheme of bourgeois spatial structure with places to live and places to work (plus places for spare time activities). They represent an integrative way that refuses to accept a lifestyle which is formed through such a structure.”

So again the objection is not the work itself, but the spatial (and presumably timing) setup of the work.  Translating the “bourgeois” adjective as the social structures that organically arose to support industrialization, we still seem to be fighting the industrial revolution.

Two hundred-plus years and counting, and still no one’s happy with the industrial set-up.  Of course, no one was likely happy being a peasant either.  They just didn’t have the time and energy to futz about it.

Congressional hearings in the news again. This time a crusade to save newspapers (politico or cspan).  I suppose they mean it to work better than the crusade to increase homeownership over the past decade.  But enough digression.  Many speeches and proposals. Perhaps most interesting a bill proposed by Maryland Senator Cardin to allow newspapers to operate as non-profits.  Since most are losing money already, just getting to the breakeven point would be a significant advance – I don’t imagine the bill has any suggestions about how to accomplish that.

Firmly on the profit-side, Rupert Murdoch held a conference call today touting his plan to end free news content on the web, at least from his newspapers.  From lawmakers, he is asking for stronger copyright control to prevent news aggregators from poaching his content.  To back up the viability of the online subscription model, he points to the success of Wall Street Journal’s online sales.  There are very few news outlets with the same high quality and time-sensitive value of the Journal’s copy, however.  

The un-answered question, of course, is why we’re trying to save newspapers at all.  In the congressional testimony, Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, among others, testified that bloggers and more formal online reporters can fill the social and cultural function of newspapers.  The arguments for newspapers include providing a ready transcript of record, connecting a real-life local community, but most frequently focus on professionalism. 

What is meant by “professionalism” is not always clear.  It can’t be competent, professional writing skills, because many can learn those without working for an actual newspaper.  I think many imply objectiveness by the term, but few newspapers among the mainstream media can credibly own that quality.  Perhaps, the basic meaning of professionalism is a minimum level of credibility built by mainstream newspapers through editorial control, reader feedback, and years of accumulated reputation.  The first two could be replicated on the web, although at some cost, but the reputation effect is more difficult.

Web-based credibility ranking systems are under development in many forms.  Voting models, modulation models, comparison with mainstream media, aggregated summaries.  Some might work, most won’t.  The most effective credibility ranking is the willingness to pay for content, as Mr. Murdoch implies.  So the viability of the on-line micro-reporting model, might depend, with much of the rest of the small-scale web, on development of a micropayment system, such as TipJoy or Google’s Knol project, based on monetizing knowledge similar to the system proposed in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.

I thought to comment on last week's Congressional hearing about the "scandal" of the BCS. But from other comments I've seen, it appears obvious to everyone except certain aggrieved Congressmen that they have little business poking about this topic.  Pointless to comment anyway, the pull of the grandstand is too strong.  Too bad, just think of all the money taxpayer's would save if all pointless committee hearings were canceled.

Instead, the NFL draft has once again highlighted the free ride the pro teams get for the training of their players.  Unlike MLB, with their extensive farm system, all the NFL (and most of the NBA) player development is generated gratis by the major colleges.  Not only are the players not paid, but evidence accumulates that most major sports programs at colleges are money-losers.  So again taxpayers (and alumni) foot the bill.    

A fairly detailed look in today's WSJ by Allen Barra,   Pro Football's College Tuition Bill, even posits a solution.  For every player drafted by the NFL, the league funds one scholarship for the other talented players on the team that don’t quite make the draft.  Just like the minor-league system, the pro organizations should have to pay for all the required players.  Without good competition, no development would occur.