Idea for a new paywall model?

Rare market or not, there are more Oklahomas out there than there are New Yorks, Bostons. This industry is about more than just the biggest of the biggest markets. Just because something may not work in New York City, doesn't mean it won't work in other markets.

And I've never argued that you move current traffic behind a paywall. In fact, I was suggesting just the opposite. There are papers that make you pay for anything on their site that's not an obituary. I'm not even talking about premium content. I'm talking basic content. No free 10 articles a month. These are the sites I'm targeting with this idea. There are people who want to read something in the paper, but don't have the means or the incentive to pay for a year's subscription. The strict paywall drives people away. And good luck promoting your work online as a writer, it's basically pointless unless you are in a NYC-sized market. People aren't going to pay for a year's subscription just to read one article. They may not even be willing to pay for one month. But I'm sure there are some who would pay to read that one article, so by not offering a per-article price, that's potential revenue the company isn't getting.

Sure, you can call and ask for a hard copy, but I want to read the article now, not in five days when a mailed issue finally arrives at my doorstep.

 

Winnipeg is trying it, but doesn't seem to be catching on.

Six weeks into its micropayment strategy, The Winnipeg Free Press preps for a “slow building process”

 

I do think micropayments have some potential but it leans away from the subscription model, which is what most papers still really want to do. They want to know what the subscriber base is and they want to know how much revenue they're going to get from it.

From the publishers' perspectives, the micro-transactions thing seems like more trouble than it's worth. Maybe that's short-sighted, but until someone proves it works they won't be inclined to switch.

 

I think more papers should use the Netflix model. Get people reading with a free month if they sign up, and leave it on them to cancel at the end of the month. If they don't, they get billed. If they do, they're cancelled. The key is showing them in that month that the money is going to be worth it. I keep Netflix and the WWE Network because I use them. I dropped Hulu because I didn't.

I know the New York Times sends out offers like this from time to time, with free trial periods or reduced prices for a trial. I think it could work for other papers, too.

 

Like I said, I'm not sure the scale is big enough to make a partial model work in the smallest markets. Let's say a company generates $21 per 1,000 impressions via the ad space on each page of its website. You'd have to charge at least .21 per article to break even on a micropayment model. But not everybody who would read a story for free is going to pay for it, so you'd have to end up charging more than .21 per article to make up for that loss. Plus, the whole reason we are talking about this is because we don't think the revenue generated by the current model is adequate, so we'd have to charge MUCH more than .21 per click to increase revenue from the CPM model. So, what, we're asking people to pay .50 per click now? That's the price of a paper. As for the partial subscription plan, $9.99 seems to be the price point that the rest of the Internet has decided is zero barrier for consumers. Spotify, Netflix, ESPN Insider, etc. -- that's how much all of those companies charge. So what's the daily traffic on the Oklahoman's website? And how much of that traffic do you think would actually subscribe? Even if you charge 50,000 $10 a month, that's $6 million per year. Is that more than they are earning in digital revenue already? Perhaps. How much more? And how much of a difference will it really make toward the bottom line? And if you think 50,000 would actually sign up, you haven't been paying attention to any of the stories linked here.

 

The problem is, consumers "paying for content" never did pay the bills. Advertising is what paid the bills. The "cost" of the paper basically covered the cost of printing and delivery. Everything else -- particularly salaries and other staff expenses such as travel -- were covered by the revenues from display advertising and classified advertising.

Classified ad revenue is gone is not coming back. And display advertising on the websites is not nearly as desirable as display advertising was when newspapers were big. Shit, back in the day, you sold an awful lot of ads simply by answering the phone. The advertisers would call you. Now you're making the calls and not getting much of any response. Not only do people who read newspapers online want their content to be free, they also want it to be ad-free. A lot of people used to buy the paper strictly for the ads. Now, people seeking ads and coupons and the like go directly to the shopping sites.

 

All true and this is the root cause of the industry's problems. Worth repeating since some people still don't understand it.

A single back-page car ad is probably still worth more to most papers than a week's worth of online revenue.

 

People will pay for obits and access to death records, Ancestry.com has proven that and people who are heavy into research will pay for access to just about anything but, for example, at my place, we went to a hard paywall and I don't even know why we bother with a website anymore.

The traffic has dropped to almost nothing.

 

The most tolerable range likely lies somewhere between a hard paywall and microtransactions. There needs to be some form of paywall for most newspapers sites; you can't give it away for free anymore.

I've seen a few sites have a 24-hour ruler that then goes to tiered pricing. Everything's free to click on for 24 hours. After that, you have a couple options: A day pass for a $1, a month for $10, or a year for $50. Of course print subscribers already have free access to paywall content. And you can offer certain deals.

Seems like the most logical route to me.

 

Topless chicks.
Dollar a day.

 

What is the world coming to when I agree with old_tony?

 

Disagree with the first statement, but not the second. The pay model ship has sailed. As pointed out by others, nobody is going to pay for content they can get (albeit from a different source) for free in most cases. But I don't see why people wouldn't put, say 20 bucks or so that automatically replenishes into an account to pay for something that costs a small amount but is used often. I have paid on the area toll roads like this for years, and it is quite simple.

All of this. I honestly don't understand why so many people in this business don't get this. Classifieds have always paid the bills. And you might notice how outrageously expensive obits are these days if you ever have to buy one. That's because they're the only thing left in the paper that brings in decent money. The big ads are expensive too, but the volume just isn't there to pay everyone's salaries. Best case would be to develop a strong local classified presence online, but competing with the Craigslists and EBays of the world preclude making a big dent in that market. Now, if someone had thought of it 15 years ago ...