Posts Tagged ‘paywalls’

Just 36 percent of adults currently pay for local news and, not surprisingly, when asked if they would be willing to pay subscription fees, the willingness went down as the cost went up, according to The State of the News Media 2011, an annual report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

According to the survey, conducted in January, most of the adults currently paying for local news are doing so via print newspaper subscriptions (33 percent), while 5 percent said they pay for other online local news content, and 1 percent mentioned local news apps.

When asked if they would be willing to pay $5 per month for access to online local news content, 23 percent of respondents agreed, but that number fell to 18 percent when the monthly cost was doubled to $10. Nearly three-quarters of respondents would not pay at all.

Variety confirmed news from Monday, originally reported by TheWrap.com, that it will launch a blog outside of its paywall and offered details about the new product, Showblitz, in an email:

Dear friend of Variety,

Variety is excited to present Showblitz, a breaking news blog designed with you in mind.

Showblitz is an up-to-the-minute, easy-to-digest showcase for Variety‘s best scoops and important entertainment news stories.

We realize that our paywall has discouraged sites like yours from linking to our content in the past, even when Variety breaks big showbiz stories. Showblitz gives you a way to let your users have access to an important source of news — and it also gives you an easy way to monitor a feed of Variety‘s exclusives and breaking news.

This is not a strategy shift for Variety.com. The paywall lives on. Each entry on Showblitz — short, timely, punchy and art-centric — will include links to the full stories within Variety.com. In fact, what better way to entice eventual new subscribers than great, compelling, timely, and newsy content they can’t get anywhere else?

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Variety will allow a small leak through its paywall, launching a news blog Tuesday that will be visible free-of-charge, TheWrap.com‘s Sharon Waxman reported.

The blog will feature casting and deal news, mainly from film editor Josh Dickey, along with film reporters Justin Kroll and Jeff Sneider, according to TheWrap.com, which added that the trade newspaper’s Web site has been behind a paywall since December 2009.

Three newspapers in east Tennessee owned by Landmark Community Newspapers — the Roane County News, the La Follette Press, and The Morgan County News — will erect paywalls, WBIR.com reported.

Roane County News publisher Johnny Teglas said on the newspaper’s Web site:

A major portion of revenue for our news and information efforts each month is derived from subscription revenue … We feel that as we improve our services to our readers, they should help pay for them, whether it’s in print or online.

Another Tennessee newspaper, The Daily Post-Athinean, has had a paywall for some six years, and circulation manager Tom Cogdell told WBIR.com:

The cost of a mail subscription paying continually increasing postal rates, this has benefited these folks because now they can get an online subscription for a small percentage of the charge.

Speaking of paywalls, The Selma Times-Journal is targeting March 1 for its move to a pay model — actually, three pay models. The Alabama newspaper will offer full-time access for an entire year for $48; one month for $4.95; or two-day passes, which it did not specify the cost of.

Print subscribers will receive rebates matching their digital costs should they elect to participate.

The decision by the Times-Journal had nothing to do with Wednesday’s introduction of the Google One Pass content payment system, as the newspaper will use PayPal.

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Philadelphia Media Network, parent company of The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, announced a series of new digital initiatives at its media properties, chief among them the implementation of a paywall.

Content on portal Philly.com will continue to be offered free-of-charge, but in order for readers to access a “newspaper format experience” for the Inquirer and Daily News, subscriptions will be required. The content will be available on a free trial basis through Feb. 13, and the subscription fees have not yet been revealed.

In addition, the A3 page in the Inquirer will now include what the company described as “best of breed” blogs on the featured theme, to go along with the newspaper’s print content. And the Business section will be further integrated with Philly.com.

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Add The Times-Tribune of Scranton, Pa., to the list of newspapers implementing paywalls, as it announced that starting Tuesday, Jan. 18, users would be able to read 10 stories over a 30-day period, after which they will be asked to subscribe.

Print subscribers must pay $2.99 per month or $19.99 per year, while nonsubscribers will be charged $6.99 per month. The home page, obituaries, blogs, and classified ads will remain free-of-charge.

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The paywall at Editor & Publisher is no more, as the Duncan McIntosh-owned newspaper-industry magazine announced that more of its original content is now available free-of-charge.

E&P also announced the promotion of Adam Tessin to technology director from Web developer and IT manager for E&P and DMC’s four other publications.

Duncan McIntosh president Duncan McIntosh said:

We have not been big believers in paywalls. Paywalls in name alone connote a psychological negative, which is one reason we have never been big believers. Nielsen had been using one for a number of years, but nothing during the past year has changed our opinion about them. We have removed it to build more traffic and make more of our original content available to our visitors.