I'm Fat, but No Idiot: Consumers Will Pay for News

By Caroline Miller

Posted Aug 13, 2009 11:08 AM CDT

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I'm Fat, but No Idiot: Consumers Will Pay for News — FILE -- This is a March 1, 2003 file photo showing Dallas Mavericks head coach Don Nelson, left, listening as Mavericks owner Mark Cuban talks prior to the start of an NBA game against the Memphis Grizzlies in Dallas. Mark Cuban and Don Nelson have been feuding for years, an ugly legal dispute over... (AP Photo/Donna McWilliam, File)

Media maverick (and Mavericks owner) Mark Cuban mixes it up with Newser's Michael Wolff, laying out his argument that consumers should and will pay for online content if it's packaged in a new way. Allowing as how he's fat, but hardly an idiot (as per Wolff's column yesterday, see link below) he uses an analogy of subscribing to his favorite kind of breakfast cereal on Amazon, getting a couple of boxes a month at a discount for his commitment.

Now that the price of handling mass amounts of data has "fallen off a cliff," the same can work for the right bundle of online content, he says. Case in point: For Rupert Murdoch, he recommends a News Junkies Subscription, which would give consumers access to every News Corp. site (other than the Wall Street Journal, which is an add-on), two books from Harper Collins, a subscription to the Weekly Standard, and a $99 credit at the Fox Store for DVDs, a $321 value for $9.95 a month.
(More Mark Cuban stories.)

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