Newsday.com Has 35 Subscribers

Wow. Well, there’s really no way to spin this that does not make it both bad and embarrassing: Newsday.com has 35 subscribers. Meaning, among other things, I suppose, that not all the parents of everyone who works at the paper has bothered to cough up the $5/week. Kidding! They probably already subscribe to the print version and therefore get online access for free.

Anyway, you may recall, though the above number suggests otherwise, that Newsday.com went behind a paywall back in October, a little over a year after being purchased by Cablevision, who had plucked it from the struggling Sam Zell-owned Tribune Co (after a rumored bid-off with Rupe). Newsday has had a rough ride these few years! Likely someone there should have considered their already established web presence (or lack thereof) before implementing a subscription fee (also why the inevitable comparisons to the NYT upcoming paywall are a stretch…people were actually reading the NYT online before the paywall was announced). Lesson: Newspapers are not cable sports, alas.

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