U.K. News Website Experiments With Charging For News

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U.K. News Website Experiments With Charging For News [news.bbc.co.uk]

One of the UK's biggest newspaper firms, The Johnston Press, is to charge for access to online content for six of its titles.

The Johnston Press websites will either ask users to pay £5 for a three-month subscription to read the full articles, or direct them to buy the newspapers.

[piatkow]

I looked at one of Johnston's titles. A great example of how not to do it.
No mention of premium content anywhere until you read an article that falls under this category (some parts of the paper don't)
There is a subscription link which takes you to a page giving the option of logging in or creating an account. At that point there is no mention of price or duration of the account.

[Rosalind]

It's a very small scale trial: only three titles offering a paywall system, whilst another three will simply be summarising stories and directing people back to the paper version. One of my local papers is a Johnson Press title, and it was always my impression that this has always been their approach in any case. Certainly, I've read articles online on their properties before, only to find a much more in-depth version in the dead tree version.

So three papers are going to paywall some parts of some articles?

A great example of how not to do it.

I don't think this trial is a good example to watch in any case, quite apart from its limited nature. I can think of two reasons subscriptions might work, and local news doesn't apply in either case: status and business information. You don't often learn something in local paper articles that can help make you rich or give your business a competitive edge. And you don't see people going to an interview with a copy of the local paper under their arm in an effort to impress people with how intelligent and well-read they must be, something people used to do with broadsheets back in the day.

I think there's scope to get people to buy subscriptions just because they think it will make them look good to be reading and commenting on paid-for, highbrow news. But I can't see that applying to local papers.

[swa66]

Newspapers still don't get it that they are -by far- not the only ones with news online. And the others hand it out for free. And the next generation only want stuff for free anyway.

Tree killing dinosaurs on their last legs if you ask me.

[piatkow]

You don't often learn something in local paper articles that can help make you rich or give your business a competitive edge.

The Johnstone paper that I have read gives livestock prices. Quite important for a farmer.
Personally I will stick to reading dead trees, far easier to do over breakfast.

[Syzygy]

I had started a post on this yesterday - over here...

[webmasterworld.com...]

Seems the party is over here though.

:-)

[Rosalind]

The Johnstone paper that I have read gives livestock prices. Quite important for a farmer.

Whereas my local Johnston title is the local equivalent of The Sun, with an unhealthy obsession with UFOs and pictures of cats instead of page 3. My point is, for most people it's not going to be the main or the best source for business editorial.

[Syzygy]

The Johnstone paper that I have read gives livestock prices.

Yesterday's prices...