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The Free v. Paid Online Content Debate


Newspaper companies, in these tough economic times, are taking a serious look at whether they should be charging Web users to read the newspaper's valuable online content.

In this series of articles, the Newspaper Association of America takes a look at the debate and analyzes the results of newspaper's paid and free online models. In addition, this report looks at the major factors influencing executives' decisions on whether to charge for online content and includes an analysis of financial scenarios for U.S. daily newspapers.

Download a PDF of this report.



 

Financial Scenarios for Paid Content Sites

In partnership with the Newspaper Association of America, Mignon Media has released a spreadsheet exploring the financial impact of various newspaper paid-content scenarios. The scenarios range from an entirely free newspaper Web site to an entirely paid newspaper Web site, and the spreadsheet assesses the impact on online ad revenue, subscriber revenue and more.

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Platforms for Monetizing Digital Content

NAA hosted a series of webinars with paid content platform providers in late 2009. Access the webinar archives here.

In June 2009, industry leaders asked NAA to profile a variety of companies offering a “paid content” solution and communicate back to the industry the various models and capabilities of those companies. NAA, in July, distributed a “Request for Information” to a range of companies asking for details about their platforms and business.

This report summarizes the RFI responses and provides links to documentation provided by each of the companies. Companies profiled in this report include those that have mapped out a specific solution for publishers as well as technology companies that have various tools and platforms that could be used to create a solution.

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Traffic Drops, Then Rebounds When Sites Launch Payment Systems

Expect your Web site traffic to drop when your newspaper site first puts up a pay wall, according to the experiences of several newspaper executives. Fortunately, a good portion of the traffic will return to the site eventually, and much of the returning traffic may be from local readers.

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Zero-Sum Games: Framing the Debate

The debate over charging for online content is a hot-button issue for newspapers today. Why? Both sides feel that they are not being heard.

Many on the pro-pay wall side of the debate say one of the great mistakes the newspaper industry has made has been listening to consultants advising that “information wants to be free,” and that this has led them down the path to where there is no longer a sustainable business model.

Those on the con side of the debate feel they have been telling the newspaper industry for years that there has to be a fundamental change in the way newspapers do business. Whether or not there is a pay wall, there has to be a change in information distribution mechanisms and a diversification of revenue beyond selling ad impressions.

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Corporate Calculus: Weighing the Factors, Running the Numbers

When newspaper executives consider the paid content debate, the most important factors they weigh up are how it will affect Web traffic and if they can persuade people to pay for access to their information.

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Free Content Advocates Focus on Growth Potential

The U.S. newspapers, such as the Tulsa World and the Cedar Rapids Gazette, that have tested a paid online news model, only to later remove the pay wall in favor of free content, have done so because they thought keeping up the pay wall was ultimately inhibiting online revenue and traffic growth.

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Paid Model Advocates Stress Value of Content

Ask newspaper executives whose Web sites charge for access to information why they’ve chosen a paid model, and you’ll get a laundry list of reasons -- all topped by the belief that newspaper content is too valuable to give away.

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NAA Webinars

The Newspaper Association of America hosted two Webinars on paid content. The first, "Newspapers' Online Revenue: Scenarios for Online-Only Operations," focused on financial projections and revenue advice for online paid content. The second, "The Online Paid Content Debate: Newspaper Execs Share Their Experience," included results of paid content experiments at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

Additional Reading and Resources

The following are additional articles, opinion pieces and resources on newspaper paid content

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First Published:
March 13, 2009