Who will pay for news?

We went to it about a year ago, and reportedly it's working pretty well. From what I understand, not only has it gotten its own users, print subscriptions have been going back up because you no longer have the "I can get it for free crowd."

Don't ask me any more real details than other than that, because I don't deal with that end of it.

We can do it because we have a monopoly on our coverage. What we cover, people can't get from ESPN, CNN, etc.

 

My place is in this exact same situation. Only it hasn't been up that long, so it's too soon to tell the benefits.

 

I get around the local daily paywall as well. Online only is more expensive than print with free online access. No hacking involved, but it involves changing an option on my browser.

 

Even if it is easy to get around, some people will always choose to pay if given the option to do so.

 

That's the key. To succeed behind the pay wall, you have to provide unique information that is in high demand. In sports, football recruiting has been successful behind pay walls for this reason. Newspapers don't really cover it the way Rivals, Scout and, now, 247 cover it and there's a large niche audience that eats that shit up. So a pay wall will work. If you don't read it on Rivals, you won't read it anywhere, except possibly the competition that's also behind a pay wall.

ESPN's "insider" model is a good one for newspapers to follow. The prerequisite is to put most news that rival organizations may have out there for free so you don't drive traffic away from your site to other free sites. Then you identify the stuff readers care about and add to the basic coverage more detailed content that readers will be willing to pay extra for. Put that behind a "premium" pay wall.

This way, you can maximize your site traffic (and your, albeit, modest online advertising dollar) and still have ways to generate money behind a pay wall.

 

How?

 

It works at Rivals, but then again, we're more of an "insider" service.

 

I think this can work at small papers. If the national sites and even AP are covering it, forget about it. If the local paper is the only place where you can get local news, then this can work.

It will not work at medium or larger papers at all, the exceptions might be the NYT, the WP, the WSJ, the LAT and maybe a few other of the "national" papers.

 

I will not pay for news anymore.

 

Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry, wrong idea. Please try again.

 

I think it will work at the NYT. If you think you can get the content they provide from other sources, you're kidding yourself.

The times has the most original content and the best writers. They cover stories in a way that other news orgs can't because they don't have the resources and they run features that no one else does.

For articles on business, culture, the arts, travel, architecture, etc., it's unrivaled.

The only papers that come close are the Washington Post & the Wall Street Journal (though the Journal obviously has a different focus).

I really can't comprehend a journalist not reading the New York Times every day. Where are you getting good examples of journalism if you're not reading it? What are you comparing your work to?

 

They just needed the common Internet users to change their browsing philosophies. Those of us who grew up in the Napster, Kazaa, torrents, and other P2P/downloading era can't really fathom the concept of buying something that we can get for free. And then iTunes became a legitimate online store and our parents learned how to forward emails and update Facebook from their phone. It's been a slow crawl, but if you want to learn Internet piracy today, you have to really try.

The growing awareness of Net Neutrality contributes to it all as well. People aren't thinking about alternatives to paying. If the price point is right, like a .99 iPhone app, people accept it as a cost for their entertainment and information.

Blogs will dip into the Times' business a little, what with daily linkage and blockquote Wordpress tags. But they're a reputable brand with strong, sometimes pompous readership, and they're pushing a new agenda when it seems like things are a-changin'.