PUBLISHERS MEET TO TALK PAID CONTENT.

Described by some as a "discrete" meeting (by others as "hush-hush" or "quiet"), about two dozen top newspaper executives met last Thursday in a hotel conference room near Chicago's O'Hare Airport to try to develop a strategy to getting compensated for on-line content.

While the outcome of the meeting is left to speculation, the reporting of James Warren -- blogger for TheAtlantic.com and HuffingtonPost.com and a former Chicago Tribune managing editor for features and Washington bureau chief -- provided tantalizing tidbits regarding topics discussed.

Warren reported much of the meeting's agenda early in the day on Thursday, including its title, "Models to Monetize Content." The Associated Press disputed Warren's characterization of the session's title, saying that the agenda it had obtained was headed "Models to Lawfully Monetize Content."

Warren said that session topics included "Fair Syndication Consortium/Attributor," "Journalism On-line: Presentation on proposed service to charge for access to newspaper content and to license that content that [sic] on-line aggregators," "Aggregating User Data: Collecting enhanced online newspaper user data across newspaper properties and mining that data to aggressively sell target content to specific audience segments across the network (e.g. golf enthusiasts)," a "discussion about content models" and "next steps."

The former Chicago Tribune editor said that attendees included executives from Advance Publications, The Associated Press, Freedom Communications Inc., Gannett Co. Inc., Hearst Newspapers, Lee Enterprises Inc., The McClatchy Co., MediaNews Group Inc., The New York Times Co., Philadelphia Media Holdings and The E.W. Scripps Co.

He said the day was moderated by Barbara Cohen, a consultant who has worked with the American Press Institute and the Newspaper Association of America. Speaking of NAA, the group confirmed to NiemanLab.org's Zachary Seward late in the day that it had sponsored the meeting.

"With antitrust counsel present," wrote the NAA's John Sturm to Seward, "the group listened to executives from companies representing various new models for obtaining value from newspaper content online. The participants also shared success stories in driving new revenue to their newspapers products."

Steve Brill -- one of the co-founders of Journalism On-line, the new company dedicated to becoming an intermediary between paying customers and on-line providers -- spoke extensively to Staci Kramer of PaidContent.org on Friday, indicating he too had made a presentation at the Thursday meeting.

Brill told Kramer that he emphasized what he called his "88-91 formula," saying that "publishers can keep 88 percent of page views and 91 percent of on-line ad revenues while adding significant on-line circulation revenues (80 cents to $1 x 10 percent of monthly unique) and boosting print circ revenue (with bundled offers) while lowering print sub acquisition and retention costs."

The former founder of American Lawyer magazine and CourtTV said those in attendance who hadn't met with his new business before were "surprised" at his numbers.

There will be no silver bullets: neither Brill and his cohorts, nor Attributor (fleetingly mentioned in the agenda) nor Kindles nor any other one thing will "save" the newspaper business. It will be all these things -- and more. We will go from a dual-revenue stream (advertising and circulation), to a multi-revenue stream (ads, circ, on-line fees, conferences, T-shirt sales, whatever).

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