Intergrerty -- we've never heard of it - Doc Spinola of that ilk
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Local UK papers will put up paywalls
THE JOHNSTON PRESS, a UK publisher of local newspapers, has started an online subscription trial.
According to a story at the BBC, the details of which the firm has refused to confirm, six sites will be included in the trial and subscriptions will cost £5 for three months. We put this to the firm's PR but were told, "There are no further details at this stage."
Johnston Press did, however, release a brief statement to The Inquirer.
"Johnston Press confirms that as part of its ongoing development within the evolving media landscape, it is undertaking a small scale trial for paid content in a handful of its weekly publications. It is intended that the trial will last for 3 months and is expected to give Johnston Press important insight into its consumers' preferences, enabling the Company to better understand the relationship between its print and online products. The trial will come into effect from today. There are no current plans to place further titles behind a pay wall."
We tried a couple of the sites, including the Southern Reporter, headline "Peebles pipers picked to play at prestigious piping performance", and found that we could read the stories without anyone shoving a donation tin under our noses. However, another, the Ripley and Heanor News, only showed us a couple of lines and a photo to go with its "Denby's white witch gets into Black Magic" headline before suggesting we buy the paper when it comes out to find out more. We can't work out how much it would cost to buy a weekly local paper every week for the next three months, but it can't be far off a fiver.
Third time lucky however, as the Northumberland Gazette's editor must get to work earlier than his peers. "Gazette to pioneer subscription venture", blazes the headline there. "From today (November 30), readers of the Gazette website will only be able to view the first few words of a story before they will be asked to pay £5 quarterly for all premium content on the site." Causing, we assume most readers to drop their scone and go, "whaaat?".
He adds, "They will then receive access to the whole site for three months, which still works out at less than the cost of the paper", causing us to throw out our calculator.
The editor, Paul Larkin, seems to be rather pleased to be pipping some other industry heavyweights to the paywall post, saying, "It is exciting for us as journalists to be at the forefront of this venture. All eyes in the media world are on us!"
We can't be sure if the readers' will be though Paul, eh?
We here at The Inquirer like to know what kinds of news our readers are interested in paying for, within reason, so how about it? Aside from your existing subscriptions, what online news content would you be willing to pay for? And we don't mean here.
Let us know in your comments below. µ
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I would maybe consider paying for specialist content on a "magazine format" basis (content-wise, not some lame-ass graphics designer's attempt to "put a magazine on the web") if I was really interested in the typical subject matter, but only in very limited fields of interest.
I have no interest in paying for general news. And I block ads wherever possible, and would never knowingly click through an ad. So I am not your revenue stream, boys and girls. I have real reservations about the true feasibility of transferring commercial paper media to electronic format.
I agree that all content must survive on it's merits. My underlying point is that to get good content will always cost money. Either from subscriptions or, indeed, from advertising, it is not 'free'. Now, I'm not talking about News Corp here but it is especially true for local news. This has, by definition, a relatively small consumer base, so costs "per customer" are much higher. Having worked in the local media I can say that getting advertisers to spend money on advertising at all is very difficult these days. Especically so when the demographic is so small. That does not mean that these publications are doing anything inherently wrong or are failing their customers in any way. Indeed most still provide a welcome and often invaluable, service to their readers. The problem is that the advertising revenue (which is still required, as the cover price hardly pays the costs of production) has fallen away in recent years. This makes it very difficult to pay the bills, even when you are still "selling" physical newspapers.
Right now, there are too many news sites, so the traffic is spread out too thin. You don't need thousands of sites with the same information. In the future you will have fewer news sites, but each site will have much more traffic and then will get enough income from ads.
My guess is that if Murdoch doesn't change his mind, his empire will be in the losers group.
I'll answer your opening question with a question: why does every newspaper think they should have paying readers? There are hundreds of newspapers, they are a comodity.
If you haven't noticed, most online papers (including the inq) generate revenue by advertizements. So, if some can survive without a paywall, and others fail, then don't blame the readers. Blame the paper for not being distinctive enough to survive.
Here in the states, people used to get FREE tv and FREE radio via antenna, and they would sit through commercials. Now, we pay cable/satellite companies (i.e. xm, sirius), and still sit through commercials with cable tv unless we cough up extra for a DVR. 100 channels and nothing's on, but at least it costs more!
Personally, I watch TV on hulu ('free' other than the price of internet, and the commercials are a fair trade-off). I get my news from 'free' sites with advertisements.
The Economist.
And will continue to do so.
For some time there has been no better source of considered analysis.
For the forseeable future I expect them to survive in print because long articles are easier to read in print.
Us ripped-off UK types already pay for the BBC's news via our licence fees. Murdoch would like us to pay for it again on-line and preferrably through him. Seems to be a no win situation for the newspapers. I know of many people who buy a newspaper after reading a article on-line, who would not otherwise buy said paper.
Why do people think they deserve to get everything for nothing these days? Last time I looked, life wasn't exactly free. The BBC website certainly isn't - it's 139.50 a year. Nor do I think my mortgage company or utility providers would be too pleased to hear I wasn't going to pay any more because it's a brave new world and paying for things is just so 'yesterday'. It does actually cost money to provide decent content - unless you only want to get it from a bunch of semi literate teenage bloggers. Even they will find out soon enough that life is not a free ride.
You may put up a paywall if and only if you are the sole supplier of said news. If you have any kind of competition then the paywall is like asking your readers to migrate to the competitor.
More along the lines of EPIC FAIL, but lead balloon works too.
It's not so much the monetary value that is the problem, as it's pennies, it's just the inconvenience of trying to find some news and being presented with a box you have to type your credit card details into.
You know what will happen...
Google for some local news
Click link "Register here..." click back, go to next link, cool, free BBC Local news page.
The words 'Lead' and 'Balloon' go together well i think