A wrap of some of the news companies talking about charging for online content at some point.
Via cyberjournalist comes a report that The MediaNews Group in the US will charge for some of its online content from its 54 newspapers, including The Denver Post, The Detroit News, the Salt Lake Tribune, and the San Jose Mercury News.
The precise details of the MediaNews plan have not been disclosed, but management revealed its broad outlines in a memo to staffers released two weeks after an executive conference on interactive media.
First, MediaNews said it will stop reproducing all its print content online, meaning that some stories will only appear in the newspapers. Second, online content will be crafted to reach a younger audience; and third, online users who are not subscribed to the print edition will be required to register and pay a fee to read stories online.
Describing the new strategy for monetizing content, the memo noted: “We are not trying to invent new premium products, but instead, tell our existing print readers that what they are buying has real value, and to our online audience (who don’t buy the print edition), that if you want access to all online content, you are going to have to register, and/or pay… To be clear, the brand value proposition to the consumer is that the newspaper is a product, whether in print or online, which must be paid for.”
Via the Guardian came the report that Rupert Murdoch aims to charge for access to the online content of his multiple newspapers.
Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation’s newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a ”malfunctioning” business model.
Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an “epochal” debate over whether to charge. “That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal’s experience,” he said.
Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, he replied: “We’re absolutely looking at that.” Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin “within the next 12 months‚” adding: “The current days of the internet will soon be over.”
Plunging earnings from newspapers led the way downwards as News Corporation’s quarterly operating profits slumped by 47% to $755m, although exceptional gains on sale of assets boosted bottom-line pretax profits to $1.7bn, in line with last year’s figure.
Dwindling advertising revenue across print and television divisions depressed the News Corp numbers despite box office receipts from Twentieth Century Fox movies such as Slumdog Millionaire and Marley and Me. But Murdoch said he believed signs of hope were appearing.
“I’m not an economist and we all know economists were created to make weather forecasters look good,” he quipped. “But it is increasingly clear the worst is over.”
He continued: “There are encouraging signs in some of our businesses that the days of precipitous declines are done, and things are beginning to look healthier.”
And via NewMediaAge comes word that Thomson Reuters are considering charging for content on their consumer-facing site.
Tim Faircliff, general manager of consumer media at Thomson Reuters, said the challenges of the recession are forcing publishers to examine pay models as ad revenues decline. “We’ll probably experiment with charging for content,” he said.
These plans can work – The Economist and the New Scientist both successfully sell online content.
And I certainly wouldn’t want to bet against Rupert Murdoch in any media sector.
But, until now, publishers have only been able to get away with online charging when they have specialist and high quality information that isn’t readily reproduced elsewhere. I doubt this applies to most newspapers and it certainly doesn’t apply to the bulk of Murdoch’s stable.
I don’t have up-to-date numbers, but I know in the past The Australian Financial Review struggled to make its paid content offer work.
The AFR is one of the best paper in the Southern Hemisphere. It has a huge amount of highly specialist material. If AFR.com struggles to make money from paying readers, the omens are not good for less distinguished and differentiated publications.
Disclosure: I worked for the AFR for 7 years and for Fairfax Business Media for two years.
http://evolvingnewsroom.co.nz Julie Starr
I think you’ve articulated my biggest question nicely – will people pay for content that’s not sufficiently differentiated? Bernard Hickey made much the same point in his blog this week.
I understand people paying for specialist content and charging it up to their business, as is the case with the WSJ, but daily news?
Every so often I ask myself what I *would* pay for. Most recently my answer was I wouldn’t subscribe to one magazine, but I would pay a single subscription to, say, five – The New Yorker, Atlantic, Idealog, Wired and Lapham’s Quarterly for example. I’d want access to the archives, the option to have the print version delivered but only when I choose, an attractively presented weekly email with highlights from each, and maybe the option to click a ‘My Mag’ button on articles I want to read but haven’t found time for, and have them printed on demand and posted. Or some kind of added value like that.
Similarly, I wouldn’t subscribe to one newspaper, but maybe a single subscription to a group of papers I like, and would similarly want access to archives, ability to order some content as print on demand and more.
Perhaps that’s what Murdoch’s looking at – a single subscription to his multiple publications? Or would that fail to raise sufficient revenue?
This is the blog of Julie Starr. I write about the news business and consult on newsroom integration and change projects.
I am currently working on...
* Newsroom change management and web-and-print development for Fairfax Media NZ.
All Evolving Newsroom
Fresh wave of plans to charge for news online
A wrap of some of the news companies talking about charging for online content at some point.
Via cyberjournalist comes a report that The MediaNews Group in the US will charge for some of its online content from its 54 newspapers, including The Denver Post, The Detroit News, the Salt Lake Tribune, and the San Jose Mercury News.
Via the Guardian came the report that Rupert Murdoch aims to charge for access to the online content of his multiple newspapers.
And via NewMediaAge comes word that Thomson Reuters are considering charging for content on their consumer-facing site.