Interesting discussion towards the end of last week between Five Live presenter Simon Mayo and ITV’s executive chairman Michael Grade.*
Inevitably, they talked Susan Boyle, star of YouTube for the month of June and Grade made a pitch for micropayments.
As I explore in my latest column for Journalism.co.uk today, there are at least four good reasons why making micropayments pay off is going to be a tough challenge for ITV. Briefly,
1. Micropayments don’t work for perishable goods
2. Micropayments put people off
3. Micropayments only work if you control distribution
4. YouTube clips drive traffic first, revenues second
You can read the piece here for a little more meat on the bones.
(You can listen to the interview on the iPlayer until midnight Wednesday 15 July. Grade interviews starts around 1 hour, 22 minutes.)
Related:
– Scarcity, Abundance And The Misapprehension Of Online Advertising
– What if the business model for news ain’t broke?
– More Journalism.co.uk columns
Jon Bernstein 
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