Posted by Bud on March 02, 2010 at 15:09:56:
Roger Ebert introduces The Ebert Club; members' cents and sensibilities support Sun-Times critic's free Internet efforts
On the night before his Tuesday appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" airs, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert gave online devotees a glimpse of how they may be able to subsidize his work on the Internet.
Get ready for The Ebert Club, which, according to a Monday-night note Ebert wrote to readers, "will offer a group of additional attractions and conveniences for members" willing to pay a little more than a penny a day, enabling him "to preserve free access" to his site.
The note announcing the club was taken off offline after a short while because of a registration software glitch. "The software guru says the Ebert Club page WASN'T READY and I jumped the gun," Ebert wrote early Tuesday on Twitter. "He says I can pull the trigger in the morning" when it will be possible for prospective members to enroll. (I'll provide a link when it's available again.)
Ebert, who has as strong a journalistic brand as any individual in Chicago today, explained by e-mail that the club was his idea, but the Sun-Times agreed to it. He said he has no idea how much or how little income it might yield, describing it as just "my toe in the water."
But it's precisely this kind of experimentation with developing new revenue streams, no matter how incremental, that will be critical if legacy media operations want to continue to provide consumers the same kind of content the same ways they now do as traditional business models shift.
"Most web sites generate less income than they cost to maintain. Mine is no exception," Ebert wrote, explaining the rationale for his Club in the note to readers.
"Membership in the club will not be expensive," he wrote. "Through March, we'll have special introductory prate of $4.99 a year's membership. After April 1, the price will shoot up to $5. No, this is not an April Fool's joke. April 1 is the date I was appointed movie critic of the Sun-Times, and I plan to live it up."
Although it is listed last among the benefits of membership in Ebert's note, the knowledge for those who ante up a fin that they "will be helping enormously to support" his site surely figures into the rewards.
Other rewards, according to Ebert, will include a "private discussion thread" for members, special Web pages, advance notice of ticket availability for his annual film festival in Champaign, Ill., as well as a meet-and-greet there, and potential live webchats.
Ebert, whose health issues have cost him his voice, is set to appear Tuesday on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to unveil a high-tech device that uses recordings of him from DVD commentaries to help him to "speak" and give his Oscar picks. The show, taped Friday, is set for 9 a.m. on Chicago's WLS-Ch. 7, with a rerun at 11:05 p.m.