A long journey ahead: The changing faces of major Taiwan newspapers in digital age

讀者習慣改變、大環境因素以及日新月異的科技，迫使全球報業面臨平面轉型數位化的典範轉移。甚至連美國報業龍頭《紐約時報》發行人沙茲伯格也表示，在可見的未來將停止發行紙本，完成完全數位化。 在此新舊交替的時刻，台灣四大報《聯合報》、《蘋果日報》、《中國時報》和《自由時報》的總體數位化策略為何？各報邁向數位化內容、發行管道和營收模式各自採取何種作法？ 與各報系管理階層、平面媒體工作者以及媒體觀察者進行訪談後，發現報社總體數位策略對於報紙數位化進程產生深刻的影響。其中《聯合新聞網》和《壹蘋果網路》已逐漸脫離紙報附庸的角色，朝新媒體平台邁進。《自由時報電子報》和《中時電子報》發展相對保守。 本研究也發現，台灣報紙數位化的變革，在內容呈現型態上最明顯也最一致。在發行管道和數位營收等面向，台灣報紙網站發展不一。綜合檢視，做法越多元的報紙網站，在數位時代下較容易成功。Like many newspapers around the world, newspapers in Taiwan have suffered from a rapid decline in both readership and profitability. Most major newspapers saw the internet as a potential opportunity to revive the industry, as readers and advertisers have grown increasingly reliant on the internet for sources of information. This report seeks to explore how four major newspapers in Taiwan, United Daily News, China Times, Apple Daily and Liberty Times, have transformed in terms of digital content presentation and distribution as well as online business model over the past several years to better adapt to rapidly developing technological advances. All four newspaper websites have shown significant improvement in content presentation, by incorporating more multimedia and interactive elements. However, the newspapers failed to provide contents such as hyperlocal news which online-readers and advertisers find appealing. The four websites have also adopted a multi-directional distribution system by seeking alliances or cooperation with major portals such as Yahoo and MSN as well as social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Plurk. Executives of Taiwan newspapers have been grappling with business model uncertainty and most of them pointed out that a hybrid business model, a combination of different models including ads, subscription, service, could be the answer for now