UK Newspaper Drops Paywall After Less Than 10 People Subscribe

from the disasters dept

As Rupert Murdoch moves forward with his plans to put in place a paywall for the online sites of some of his UK newspapers, he may want to look around carefully. Jeff Sonderman points us to the news of a UK newspaper publisher that put in place a paywall of £5 for three months of access to its newspaper websites late last year -- only to find that the paywall has been quietly dropped after less than ten people signed up at one of the papers:

A source at one of the titles involved in the trial said it had been a "disaster" and that the number of people subscribing had been in single figures.

This fits with Newsday's experiment, where only 35 non-Cablevision subscribers were willing to sign up. Newspapers keep over-estimating the willingness of people to pay to read websites.

Filed Under: paywall, united kingdom

Paywall/Open Debate Applied To University Education As Well

from the the-same-debate-we've-seen-before dept

DV Henkel-Wallace writes

"The New York Times has a good article about Open Courseware (how universities are putting their material online for anyone to use as they see fit). Unusually, the article has an accurate and pithy summary of how the movement started and evolved. It is still a little incredulous that such a thing can really exist ("On a philosophical level, the idea of making money from something available free might seem questionable."). But it is clear: a little ecosystem is building around this educational material.

What's most interesting, is how the same arguments that have already arisen around the "big data" areas like music, film and news appear in this smaller area as well. When MIT launched OCW, they directly addressed the CwF+RtB issues by pointing out that people attend schools for additional reasons than just the syllabus. But some people still don't get it: a professor from the Tuck School of Business still feels that putting the syllabus out there will let the magic out, claiming that it's "obvious" that an "exclusive experience" is appropriate.

The best quote: "It's pretty hard to imagine how an elite institution like us or like Harvard or Stanford or any of the other top schools would stay in business if they didn't have some aspect of the program that was still relatively complicated and difficult to get to," Mr. Argenti said. And thus they lock some of their content behind a pay wall.

Perhaps they should do a case study of the newspapers and how the pay walls have worked out for them."

DV's summary above is great, but I wanted to highlight one more specific point from the article, which is a quote from James D. Yager, a dean at Johns Hopkins University, who basically presents the other side of the story from Professor Argenti, by actually articulating the difference between the content (infinite) and all of the scarcities that the content makes more valuable:

"We don't offer the course for free, we offer the content for free," Mr. Yager said by telephone in February. "Students take courses because they want interaction with faculty, they want interaction with one another. Those things are not available on O.C.W."

Exactly. That's the point, and it's too bad that a professor at Dartmouth (which is generally a pretty good business school) would so confuse the basic economics of information, and not realize that even if all of the course info is free, there are always aspects that are scarce.

Separately, James Schirmer points us to a related article concerning how some liberal arts schools are using Open Courseware to improve their own programs. It's sort of taking a look at the other side of this overall debate, noting how liberal arts schools can improve their curriculum by having professors use OCW as a resource. Now, the OCW critics will claim that this takes away from the big schools that put content into OCW, but again, that's misunderstanding the market, and assuming a zero-sum game, rather than an ability to expand the overall pie, recognizing that better education programs across the board are a good thing that open up many more opportunities than they take away.

Filed Under: open courseware, paywall, universities
Companies: dartmouth, mit, stanford university

Newsday Exec: We Didn't Put Up A Paywall To Get People To Pay

from the success! dept

With lots of people finding it rather amusing that a grand total of 35 people have subscribed to Newsday's paywall, a Newsday exec has responded by saying the purpose of the paywall was never about getting people to pay in the first place. It's all about reducing churn from cable subscribers. While the exec claims that those mocking the low number of subscribers ignored this, that's not at all true. In fact, at least in our case, the very title of our post about Newsday's paywall was all about how it was designed to reduce churn for Cablevision subscribers. The bigger point that people were making wasn't specifically about Newsday, but to alert all of those other folks who seem to think that people will jump up and pay for online access to their local newspaper. As Newsday is discovering, that's not the case.

Furthermore, if the goal was just to reduce churn, with no interest in getting outside subscribers, why offer a subscription plan at all? Why not just limit access to those who subscribe to Cablevision? Claiming no interest in signing up outside subscribers is shown to be a lie in the fact that they set up a system specifically to do just that.

Filed Under: paywall, retention
Companies: cablevision, newsday

After Three Months, Newsday's Grand Paywall Experiment Has 35 Paying Customers. Yes, 35.

from the no,-really.--35 dept

Like many, we were amazed at the decision by Cablevision to try charging $5 per week (yes, per week) for its paywall to Newsday content online. The newspaper itself is not particularly good and doesn't really provide all that much in the way of excess value compared to what else is out there. And $5/week is extremely high. Yet, even so, we're a bit surprised that after three months, the paper has a grand total of 35 paying subscribers. Yes, 35. I'm sure that extra $175/week comes in quite handy. Oh right, they also saved on the salary of their popular columnist who quit, rather than have his work hidden behind a paywall.

To be fair, Cablevision never really seemed to view this much as a direct source of revenue, but rather as a churn reducer for its cable subscribers, who can get to the Newsday website for free. Still I doubt there are really that many people who decide not to drop their Optimum Cable service just because they get free access to Newsday online. I can't imagine that the $175, in any way, makes up for the drop in visitors and ad revenue. According to multiple online tools, the general estimate is that Newday has lost 50% of its web traffic since putting up the paywall. And in return, they get $175/week. Nice one, Cablevision.

Filed Under: newsday, paywall, subscriptions
Companies: cablevision, newsday

NY Times Apparently Planning To Commit Suicide Online With Paywall

from the so-long,-farewell dept

There have been rumors for a while that, despite the NY Times massive failure with its last attempt at a paywall -- which drove away users in bunches, pissed off NY Times writers and did little to help the bottom line -- the NY Times might consider going back down that cursed road. And now reports are leaking out that the braintrust at the NYT has made a decision and it's to kill off whatever value the NY Times' online presence may have had by putting up a paywall designed to piss off users and take itself out of the online conversation.

Apparently, it considered three options for getting users to pay more for online content -- and then chose the worst of the three. Among the rejected ideas were the one that we thought sounded quite promising of creating a CwF+RtB-style membership club, that would give people all sorts of benefits for paying, without taking away the free content. The newspaper apparently also rejected a WSJ-style paywall that is pretty porous, with lots of content for free, and easy ways in if necessary, but some stuff gets blocked out. I don't think that's a very good solution long-term, but it surely beats the solution that the NY Times appears to have gone with: a Financial Times-style "metered" system, whereby you can visit a few times per month and are then locked out. I try not to link to the Financial Times because of this particular system. It means when I link to them a large number of my readers can't read the story, and that is no good for anyone. Why am I going to send people to a story they can't read? Putting up such a system takes the NY Times out of the conversation online and makes sure that people won't link to them, won't share the stories and won't discuss them.

Will some people sign up and pay? Yes, absolutely. In fact, I'm sure that there will be stories early on about just how many people subscribed. But as we saw with TimesSelect, that initial number plateaued quickly, and getting the next generation of readers to sign up? Yeah... good luck. Putting this system in place is effectively the NY Times saying that it only plans to be the paper of record for an older generation, and plans to give up the next generation.

Filed Under: paywall
Companies: ny times

Local UK Newspaper Chain Tries A Paywall

from the good-luck dept

Slowly, but surely, we're seeing some regional newspapers try out a paywall. We've already seen Newsday, on Long Island, put up a paywall, but it's more about reducing churn than actually getting people to pay (and early reports are that not many are paying). Now, as a bunch of readers sent in, Johnston Press, in the UK has announced a paywall as well, asking £5 for three months of access (which certainly beats Newsday's ridiculous $5/week plan. I'm glad that some newspapers are actually trying this out, as it was getting a bit tiresome hearing them all threaten to do so without any actual action. Now we can actually see what happens. Of course, my opinion on the matter has been clear. I think it will be a lot more difficult to get people to pay than these publishers believe, and it will be a lot more expensive to manage than they believe. Also, the writers for the papers behind paywalls might not like the fact that no one knows who they are any more. At the same time, it will only serve to open up the competitive market for others to come in at a better price point (i.e., "free") and scoop up a significant percentage of the advertisers who are seeking to reach a larger audience.

Filed Under: journalism, newsappers, paywall, uk
Companies: johnston press

Murdoch Reconsidering Paywalls? Delaying Implementation

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

Is Rupert Murdoch flip-flopping on paywalls again? Way back when (i.e., two years ago) Murdoch was a big believer in the idea that news should be free online, and that he could more than make it up with other business models. But, then, earlier this year, he did a complete flip-flop, declaring that all his publications would put up paywalls, saying that free content is bad, and accusing aggregators and search engines of "stealing" content. Some speculated that it was all a ploy to get others to put up paywalls. Though, others just think Murdoch's getting a little senile. Either way, it looks like he's stalling a bit. Jay Rosen points us to the news that Murdoch is "postponing" the date for when he wants his papers to have paywalls. It's not clear if the delay is due to technical difficulties in implementing a paywall, or if he's actually reconsidering. Either way, it doesn't look like the great big paywall is going up any time soon.

Filed Under: charging, delay, journalism, news, paywall, rupert murdoch
Companies: news corp.

Newsday Columnist Quits Over Paywall, Wants To Be Read

from the as-he-should dept

One of the reasons why the NY Times eventually did away with its old "paywall" was that its big name columnists started complaining that fewer and fewer people were reading them. We've suggested in the past that newspapers who decide to put up a paywall may find that their best reporters decide to go elsewhere, knowing that locking up their own content isn't a good thing in terms of career advancement. So, with Cablevision deciding to put Newday behind a paywall, it didn't take long for some of its columnists to start to bailing. The NY Times is reporting that Newsday columnist Saul Friedman quit and did so while publishing an open letter on why paywalls are a bad idea, while also telling the NY Times that he knew his column was popular with people outside of Newsday's footprint, and he was upset that those people would not be able to read his column and that he wouldn't be able to send out links to his columns.

Oh, one other thing? Mr. Friedman is 80 years old and worked for newspapers for over 50 years. In other words, he's not just some "young kid who thinks everything online should be free" as we're so often told is the real problem. News organizations that lock up their content are increasingly going to discover that it's more and more difficult to attract top talent when compared to publications that actually help raise the journalists' profiles.

Filed Under: columnist, journalism, paywall, quit, saul friedman
Companies: cablevision, newsday

Cablevision Puts Up Newsday's Paywall; But Really Just Using It As A Churn Reducer

from the that's-not-a-business-model dept

When Cablevision first bought Newsday, Charles Dolan admitted the company knew very little about the newspaper business, but promised to consult widely with newspaper experts in coming up with a plan. That seemed like a really really bad idea, since all the newspaper experts we've seen don't seem to even recognize what business they're really in. But, it looks like that's exactly what Dolan did. Back in February, the company announced that it was going to put up a paywall for its content. Since there had been no update or any action since then, I'd actually begun to wonder if the company was rethinking that idea. No such luck. Apparently it just took a bit of time to fully plan out Newsday's self-destruction.

The company has announced that it will start charging a whopping $5/week (not month, but week) to access the website unless you're an existing paper newspaper subscriber and/or a Cablevision subscriber.

Let's be absolutely clear what this is. It is not a plan to build a 21st century news organization. It's a plan to try to reduce churn elsewhere, by putting up a slight hurdle for Cablevision cable customers and Newsday newspaper customers to prevent them from leaving. Cablevision's customer base and Newsday's subscriber base overlaps quite a bit, so for plenty of those folks there will be no change at all. But this won't do anything to actually help the news organization grow. Those who don't subscribe to the paper edition or who use a competitor for broadband (like Verizon Fios which is pushing hard in Cablevision's market) will simply go elsewhere. While the NYC papers don't cover Long Island news quite as completely, they do a pretty good job with the basics, and other local news sources will fill in the rest. Cablevision is basically saying that it's giving up in the online news business. It's an admission that it doesn't know how to compete. This won't help it sign up new customers, and may only barely help it prevent old customers from leaving.

It's basically a suicide play for Newsday. This is really a disappointment, since Cablevision -- amazingly -- had actually been one of the most forward thinking cable companies out there in terms of offering real value on the broadband side of things. But apparently it bought Newsday as an asset to let it wither away.

Filed Under: long island, newspapers, paywall
Companies: cablevision, newsday

More People Realizing That The News Finds Them... Not The Other Way Around

from the locking-up-news-doesn't-make-sense dept

We've been talking for a while about how these days, news is increasingly likely to find people rather than people finding news. This is a key point to understand in developing any kind of news related business model. It's about understanding how "passed links" or "earned links" are increasingly important. Many old school newspaper execs still think of news consumption via the old model: that someone chooses to go to a newspaper website and read through the news. But that's increasingly rare. Instead, the more common stories are the ones like Gina Chen explains, where news found her on Twitter. She didn't go looking for the particular story about the magazine Gourmet closing -- she spotted it because someone she followed who worked there mentioned it. People are increasingly getting important news from their social network "passing links" or even just passing on the news directly, rather than going to some centralized hub and "finding" the news

This doesn't mean the old model is dead, but it's less important, and less a part of the news ecosystem as it used to be. And you know what's death for news "finding" people? A paywall. If content is behind a paywall, I'm much less likely to send it out to anyone else or let anyone know about it. It's just not worth creating that kind of hassle for others. Newspapers that decide to put up such a paywall are actively putting up a barrier to one of the major promotion and distribution mechanisms in how people find and consume news these days. It's difficult to see how that makes any sense at all.

Filed Under: finding, news, paywall