Paywalls

Are Paywalls Really Catching On?

By Mark Evans in Uncategorized 4 Comments Tags: ,

Round pegFor the past decade, a growing number of publishers have valiantly attempted to make paywalls work to generate revenue from sources other than advertising. Unfortunately, it’s been like trying to pound a round peg into a square hole.

The problem is consumers have too many content choices so if they are forced to pay for even quality content, many of them will opt for something that’s free. At the same time, consumers have grown accustomed to not paying for anything online.

But is this resistance changing? A Bloomberg story suggests paywalls are slowly gaining traction, illustrated by the New York Times having 100,000 subscribers while Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London has more than 80,000.

“The mood is changing,” Charlie Beckett, the director of the Polis media research unit at the London School of Economics told Bloomberg. “Murdoch and the New York Times have taken the leap, and that encourages people. It’s still a leap”.

For publishers, they are desperately hoping the mood is, in fact, changing because they’re still scrambling to determine how to convert pageviews into revenue. Despite a decade of experimenting, they have yet to come up with a winning formula.

Leading the paywall charge this time around is Murdoch, who is intent on making paywalls stick even if inflicts terrible pain in the short-term. To give payrolls a shot of working, someone needs to be the sacrificial lamb, a role that Murdoch seems to have embraced.

If Murdoch is willing to stay the course, it might – and this is a huge might – encourage more publishers to introduce paywalls. If enough of them take the plunge, it could shrink the number of high-profile free sources to point where more consumers may – and this a big may – be willing to pay for content.

Of course, there will always be free content that will compete with paid content for attention. At the same time, many consumers will be happy to pay for good enough if it’s free rather than pay for high-quality content.

This isn’t to suggest paywalls are doomed or will enjoy only a modicum of success but anyone who suggests paywalls on are a major roll toward a lucrative future are probably fooling themselves.

The mood may be changing but it’s not changing fast enough and I suspect it won’t change enough to fix all the woes of online publishers.

Why the NYT’s Paywall Could Succeed

By Mark Evans in Media 3 Comments Tags: , ,

Apparently, the New York Times is poised to take the plunge and introduce a pay-as-you go system for its content. It’s a bold move given that few consumers are willing to pay for content based on a survey done last year.

While there are critics who don’t believe newspapers will be successful in selling content, my take is that if anyone is going to be successful, it’s the New York Times.

Why?

Perhaps the biggest reason is the NYT isn’t offering a commodity product that can be accessed in a variety of other places. The NYT produces high-quality journalism that ranks among the best in the world so, in theory, it’s content with value in the same way people pay for the Wall Street Journal.

Fundamentally, any attempt to convince consumers to pay for content starts with great content. But this is just the start as newspapers going this route also need to offer convenience such as offering access to content via smartphones, tablet computer or e-reader. The easier you make it to read content, the more value it will have, especially among mobile consumers used to paying for content.

From a high-level perspective, the NYT’s decision could have major ramifications by encouraging other newspapers to also charge for content. If this happens and it becomes more difficult to get free content, there’s a chance that paying for content becomes more widespread. If that happens, then perhaps the consumer mindset of getting online newspaper content for free could erode.


Rupert Murdoch: The Digital Don Quixote?

By Mark Evans in Media No Comments Tags: , , , ,

It has been documented to death that the business of journalism is broken but no one has come up with a widely-embraced killer idea to save it.

The exception, however, is News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch who has been leading the charge recently about introducing paywalls – something already done at the Wall St. Journal.

Now, Murdoch has raised the idea of not letting News Corp.’s Web sites be indexed by Google. In an interview with Sky News political editor David Speers, Murdoch suggests that while Google drives a lot of traffic to News Corp. sites, he’d rather have fewer people visiting but have those people pay for content.

“They shouldn’t have had it free all the time. I think we’ve been asleep,” he said after Speers asked him about the fact free online content has been around for years. “It costs us a lot of moeny to put together good newspapers and good content. [Consumers] are very happy to buy a newspaper, and I think when they read it elsewhere, they are going to have to pay.”

There are two schools of thought about Murdoch’s thoughts: He’s either one of the few people bold enough – and powerful enough – in the newspaper business to start charging people for content, or he’s a digital Don Quixote, tilting at windmills – and Google – in a chivalrous but misguided mission to bring fiscal sanity back to the newspaper business.

As someone who increasingly sees paywalls as the only plausible way for newspapers to generate enough revenue to stay relevant and viable, I admire Murdoch for embracing a tactic that many people considered to be undoable.

Like Quixote, Murdoch’s quest may bring him great melancholy and test his faith but he appears to be a man on mission.

Update: Corey Doctorow rips into Murdoch, suggesting Murdoch is lying about his threat to stop Google from indexing News Corp. sites.


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