New York Times to Introduce Metered Paywall
The ‘free vs. paid for’ debate in online publishing moved on apace last week with the announcement that the New York Times is due to launch a ‘metered’ system of online content access in 2011.
Under this new model, readers will have access to a certain number of articles for free before they have to start to pay - either via a flat monthly fee or an annual subscription.
Meanwhile, the plans of News International, the most vocal of publishers in its advocacy for paywalls, are continuing to gather momentum with the appointment of Gurtej Sandhu, previously the Senior Vice President of New Media at Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV, as Director of Times Digital . A Spring launch is expected for it’s paywall.
Even those already with existing ‘paid for’ content are making changes to their revenue models - the Financial Times, has announced plans to offer 24 -hour access passes to FT.com. The new service, which will sit alongside its existing annual subscription options, will be launched alongside its new mobile edition later in the year.
One of the barriers to the wider adoption of complete or partial paywalls has been the lack of technology to facilitate micropayments for pay per article models in both a convenient way for the subscribers and an economic way for the publishers. However, if reports that Apple plans to introduce a web version of its iTunes service prove to be true, it could be used by publishers to charge on a pay-per-article basis, overcoming the problem and opening the floodgates.
The main rationale behind moves to paywalls is that they will help protect traditional print circulations. Some also argue that online subscriptions will allow publishers to develop closer relationships with their readers and collect more data on them – allowing them to offer a much more targeted offering to advertisers which might well generate more revenues than the current approach.
Alan Rusbridger - Against Total Paywalls
However, the publishing industry is not in universal agreement on the paywall issue. Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian has described plans to erect universal paywalls around content as ’sleepwalking into oblivion’. He believes that newspapers would be foolish to turn their back on the new digital world of openly shared content and that publishers should experiment with other models first – charging for specialist content or asking readers to pay on different platforms such as mobile versions. He also believes that it is too early to write off digital advertising’s potential to support online publishing – a paywall erected around the Guardian’s content would earn a fraction of what the site is already generating in digital revenues.
What is certain is that the online media world is changing fast. As paywalls become more commonplace, those in search of ‘free news’ will flock to the reducing number of options available. This trend will offer scale to advertisers looking for mass audiences but perhaps also greater targeting if users accept behavioural targeting as a trade off for free access.
Those looking for niche audiences will have the option of engaging with the paid content providers, who will have likely built up a more complete profile on their readers and will be able to offer greater targeting and the ability for brands to leverage their close relationships with their readers.
However, inevitably not all who jump on the paywall bandwagon due to declining advertising revenues will be able to make paywalls ‘pay’, so the next 1-2 years could see a real Darwinian shake out in the media world as only the fittest survive.
