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The Digital Edge Blog focuses on developments, trends, best practices and more in newspaper digital media. The blog launched in 2006 (archives before August 2008 are here).
We look forward to reading your comments and contributions to the Digital Edge Blog. Questions? E-mail Beth Lawton at beth.lawton@naa.org.
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Hussman, Bessen: Paid Content to Increase Significantly
The economic argument in favor of online paid content is not necessarily in the revenue it can generate on its own, Walter Hussman said Thursday afternoon, but it is in the way paid content can help keep a newspaper's print circulation up.
Thursday afternoon, the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), with support from the McCormick Foundation, hosted a Webinar on paid content with Hussman, publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and David Bessen, vice president at MediaNews Group. The Webinar was called "From Free to Fee."
Both presenters said they thought a substantial number of newspapers would implement paid content systems within the next year.
Hussman, an early pioneer in newspaper paid online content and frequent speaker on the topic, said his newspaper now has about 3,400 online subscribers who pay $5.95 per month for access to everything on the Web site. Non-subscribers still get a significant portion of online news - including some blogs, multimedia, AP and others - but not everything.
Hussman said the paid content online generates just one-tenth of 1 percent (0.1 percent) of the newspaper's total revenue. But the newspaper has been very successful in keeping print circulation up in part because the newspaper is not giving all its content away for free. The Democrat-Gazette's daily circulation is up 3,000 to more than 176,000 over the past 10 years, while other newspapers in the Southeast are down (some significantly). Sunday circulation for the Democrat-Gazette is down just 1 percent in 10 years.
A USC-Annenberg study this spring (the Annual Internet Survey by the Center for the Digital Future) reported 22 percent of survey respondents said they stopped their subscription to a printed newspaper or magazine because they could access the same content while online. In addition to citing that study, Hussman batted down several myths about paid content, including the extent to which it harms search traffic to a newspaper's Web site.
A MediaNews Group task force is in the midst of substantial research and discussions on pay wall options for that company's newspapers, Bessen said. Earlier this year, MediaNews Group's Dean Singleton said the company would implement paid and premium content.
Bessen said part of the research has included studying and categorizing newspaper readers. Some Web users are casual users, who may read just a few stories a month and enter through a search engine. Some online newspaper readers have registered with the newspaper.com and visit a bit more often, and others are print subscribers or 7-day print subscribers who also access their local newspaper Web site.
The task force is discussing giving different types of readers different levels of online access, and rewarding the most loyal readers with premium or specialized content. The company seems to be looking at a price point of $5 to $10 per month for online subscriptions. But, Bessen emphasized, all plans are hypothetical at this point. The task force is also evaluating vendors.
More Information on Paid Content
For more information about the Democrat-Gazette's paid content results and much more from newspaper executives on paid content, go to NAA's special report on the issue at www.naa.org/paidcontent.
Don't Forget! -- WEBINAR: Mobile Phone App Development for Newspapers
Thursday, August 6 at 2 p.m. ET, NAA will host a free Webinar for NAA members about mobile phone application development. James Jackson from the Cincinnati Enquirer will share what he and his colleagues learned while developing mobile apps for his paper. You can sign up for the Webinar here.
Published
Jul 29 2009, 05:09 PM
by
Beth Lawton
About Beth Lawton
Beth Lawton is manager, digital media communications in the Business Development division of the Newspaper Association of America. She writes and edits many of NAA’s Digital Edge reports and the Online Publishing Update.
Prior to joining NAA two years ago, she worked as a Web producer and editor in newsrooms in the Midwest and the Caribbean.
Beth is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism (MSJ New Media 2003).
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