Forum Moderators: not2easy
One of the UK's biggest newspaper firms is to charge for access to online content from six of its titles. The Johnston Press websites will either ask users to pay £5 [US$8.25] for a three-month subscription to read the full articles, or direct them to buy the newspapers.
As someone comments in the article, it's good that publishers are trialing ways of generating revenue. And, of course, some well-known newspapers have been charging for online content for some time, so the model is proven. However, those newspapers have global brand names.
The Johnson Press will be putting up paywalls around a number of local newspapers...
Sites in the pilot scheme include the Worksop Guardian, the Ripley & Heanor News and the Whitby Gazette. The Northumberland Gazette is also included in the trial. In Scotland, the Carrick Gazette and Southern Reporter are taking part.
Now, I don't know about you, but I would not want to pay any amount of money to read local, almost parochial news. In my part of the world there is still an excess of free local newspapers. Why would I want to pay for something I already get for free?
Also, putting up paywalls may actually cause more harm than good. In the first instance readership/visitor numbers will drop, although the upside is that some subscription revenue will be generated.
The downside is that advertisers may quickly find this new, slimmed down readership now offers insufficient market coverage regionally. They may seek to spend their ad budgets in more cost effective ways.
This could have just the opposite effect to the one publishers want. What revenue is generated by subscriptions may be lost through advertisers unwillingness to spend the same amount of money on a smaller circulation. Unless, and here's a big 'unless', publishers intend to reduce rate cards accordingly. That though would only intensify the revenue losses?
What is gained on the swings of subscriptions could be more heavily lost on the advertising roundabout. So just how will they find a balance?
I suspect that many other publishers will be watching this one very closely indeed.
Syzygy
