Willing to Pay a Fee for Access to News Articles? ☀
As I’ve been perusing online since the time when the Mosaic browser ruled the web, I continue to be astonished at the recycling of this meme about the tragedy of noble newspaper guardians going extinct at the expense of gluttonous online readers taking for free what print subscribers previously paid fees to receive. Inevitably, the discussion meanders into solution space speculation — typically, after first lambasting newspaper publishing lords for their shortsightedness in adopting an online business mode. From there, subscription pay walls, various micropayment schemes, or clearinghouse outlets like how radio music is licensed to play are proffered forth.
Belied in this assessment however is a false notion that readers were ever (at least in the modern era) the main subsidization of a news organization’s operation. Subscriptions for printed news output delivery were a pittance compared to advertising revenue. But that ad money was tied to mass eyeball share for monolithic news sources. You got world events, local happenings, stock quotes, sports scores, lifestyle features, movie listings, comics, classifieds, horoscopes from that wadded bundle of newsprint left on the doorstep (or plucked from newsstand). Television displayed breaking news video, but if you wanted the deeper story, you read the newspaper or a weekly newsmagazine.
Circa 2009, you get your news from either television or the internet. Or some combination of both. But online, you would point your browser at nfl.com for NFL scores, frequent Google Finance (or Yahoo Finance or whatever your desired flavor) for stock data, tap up movie times on your iPhone NowPlaying app, and shop for a used MacBook Pro on craigslist. Yeah, you might skim local doings posted on your town newspaper’s online presence, but it’s possible you could collect the same sort of information from blogs or twitter friends. Bottom line, your news seeking exercise is blanketed over a dissemination of sources. Meaning that’s a smaller mass of web visitors for the online newspaper site proprietor. Meaning a significantly smaller ad rate with no earthly way to profit from those old school print readers.
With diminished ad fare, readers would have to carry more of the fare in what was already a minority portion. Consequently, to capture web patrons paying for content, subscription rates would have to be set at prohibitive marks. At a level that most readers would be unable or unwilling to pay.
By no means are subscription models an impossible option for all online publishers. Markets exist where there are customers eager to pay premium fees for specialized information. Odds are, however, the price will be considerably greater than the cost of a daily newspaper. And there are some successful models in existence today, churning out profit, and serving their readership, some still funded by advertising, others by a loyal subscriber base.
