A debate recorded at the Webby Awards between guardian.co.uk editor Janine Gibson and Financial Times managing editor Robert Shrimsley about paywalls. A couple of pull-out quotes:
Shrimsley
“You can have a really good news product but if it’s a bad business you’re doomed.
“I’m not going to say that pay models are the answer for everybody, we don’t know for certain they’re the answer for us. We think they’re working. We’re quite pleased with how it’s going so far. It’s certainly the case that having subscribers, and having registered users boosts our advertising model because we’re able to identify who our readers are, we’re able to present them to advertisers and say this is who you’re playing for. So we’re able to charge a premium for those advertisements.”
Gibson
“The Guardian is often described as ideologically against paying for journalism, often by people who work for Murdoch. This is complete rubbish… Don’t let anyone tell you there is no such thing as digital revenue.
“Total GNM digital revenues for the year will be around 40 million pounds… Our display and sponsorship revenue are up 50% year on year.
“We have 2.1 million browsers to mobile sites, 205,000 iPad app purchases… We’ve announced a new subscription iPhone app and an iPad app coming. Each one of these has their own revenue model.
“There’s no one simple answer, just lots of complex and not actually even particularly new ones. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It means we keep experimenting and we keep learning.”
All Evolving Newsroom
Webby debate: Guardian v FT on paywalls
A debate recorded at the Webby Awards between guardian.co.uk editor Janine Gibson and Financial Times managing editor Robert Shrimsley about paywalls. A couple of pull-out quotes:
Shrimsley
“You can have a really good news product but if it’s a bad business you’re doomed.
“I’m not going to say that pay models are the answer for everybody, we don’t know for certain they’re the answer for us. We think they’re working. We’re quite pleased with how it’s going so far. It’s certainly the case that having subscribers, and having registered users boosts our advertising model because we’re able to identify who our readers are, we’re able to present them to advertisers and say this is who you’re playing for. So we’re able to charge a premium for those advertisements.”
Gibson
“The Guardian is often described as ideologically against paying for journalism, often by people who work for Murdoch. This is complete rubbish… Don’t let anyone tell you there is no such thing as digital revenue.
“Total GNM digital revenues for the year will be around 40 million pounds… Our display and sponsorship revenue are up 50% year on year.
“We have 2.1 million browsers to mobile sites, 205,000 iPad app purchases… We’ve announced a new subscription iPhone app and an iPad app coming. Each one of these has their own revenue model.
“There’s no one simple answer, just lots of complex and not actually even particularly new ones. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It means we keep experimenting and we keep learning.”