Anthony's Blog

So, newspapers are suffering a crisis in their business model.

It's not so much that people are no longer buying papers. (Sales have dropped a bit, but if that were the only problem, they'd survive.) The major problem is that their advertising revenue streams have dropped: general advertising, and more critically, classified advertising is evaporating.

I value (a good proportion) of the articles produced by Fairfax's publications, most specifically The Age. And therefore I understand how hard they need to work to generate new revenue streams. Accordingly, when I read The Age on the web, I'll tolerate the pages being crammed with display ads.

But I cannot, cannot, WILL NOT tolerate ads that start playing videos with SOUND when I open an article. And it's very specifically the audio that upsets me. (Although video that covers the article would also be a problem.)

Last night I was watching John Adams (on my Mac with its TV tuner). We reached the point where the Continental Conference started reading the Declaration of Independence. Dramatically they read the words "And we hold these truths to be self evident", which turned out to be the moment that the page I had clicked to on The Age started playing a ad's christmas carol and video.

It's hard to imagine the moment being more effectively spoiled.

The Age had received many page hits from me that evening, as I had browsed articles whilst watching TV. They got zero hits after that.

I believe that these video/audio ads are only supposed to come up occasionally, but I find them coming up repeatedly. By which I mean many times each day.

I'm making a list of advertisers that I will loathe, despise and not patronise. It seems heartless, but for the time being that's going to include the Salvos.


And since it happened again yet again tonight, I'm going to have to completely zero my page hit count. There are many convoluted ways to do this, but this will be the simplest way...

http://www.theage.com.au/text/

I'm giving Fairfax some feedback through their feedback link. I don't expect them to write back and tell me that they are dropping the audio/video ads simply because they happen to upset me. But it is true: Fairfax and their advertisers are driving me away from The Age's site. With luck they will learn, and this nonsense will stop. But I'm not holding my breath.

One final note for Fairfax:

If you're frustrated that I'm using your "Text" pages, don't think that abolishing them would force me back to your ads (video/audio/graphical). That's missing the point. There are a dozen other ways I could achieve the same result. Advertising isn't my problem. You need to get eliminate the compulsory and intrusive audio/video from your normal pages. They're just rude and counter-productive. Educate your advertisers that they're not worth it.