True North Strong and (Not So) Free
2/2/2012
By Stone Hansard
Since The Wall Street Journal first came online with a hard paywall in 1997, traditional news organizations have tinkered with various subscription models for their online homes by adjusting access levels and subscription plans to find reasonable compromise between the Internet’s inherent openness and the premium value of high-quality journalism.
In the face of declining advertising revenues, The New York Times, The Financial Times and The Times of London had all implemented some form of subscription model by 2010.
Postmedia Network Inc. was the first major Canadian newspaper publisher to follow, adding a metered subscription system to the Montreal Gazette and The Victoria Times Colonist (which has since been sold) in May 2011. Pamela Stevenson, director of reader sales and audience development at the Gazette, explained that the metered system allows users to access 20 free articles in a 30-day period, after which they will be prompted to subscribe for further access.
Two months before The Gazette put the meter in place, the Canadian Media Research Consortium issued the results of a survey that found 81 percent of Canadians would discontinue reading their favorite online news source if they were asked to pay for it. Only 4 percent said they would pay. While optimistic, Stevenson admitted that winning over readers with a metered system is an uphill battle.
“Most of the emails that we get are not congratulating us on that,” she said. “Obviously, people who are used to getting things for free and are now being asked to pay for it, is not an easy sell.”
Naturally, limiting reader access to content leaves a potential chilling effect on the power of public relations messages at metered and paywalled outlets. The message may be lost to readers who have reached their maximum page views, and readers aware of their limited access may choose which articles to read more selectively. A lost reader is a lost opportunity to spread the message through social media and other channels.
In the grand scheme, though, the negative impact of a metered system may not amount to much.
“Some of our most successful audience months in terms of unique visitors and page views were in the couple of months right after we launched [the meter],” Stevenson noted.
She continued, “So the big question is, does your traffic fall off when you do this, and do you lose all your readers? I think we can pretty conclusively say ‘no.’ The sky hasn’t fallen. We still have very healthy traffic numbers.”
Still, the long-term viability of Postmedia’s meter system is yet to be seen.
“We’re proceeding very slowly to learn what happens when you put these kinds of things in place, and hopefully will learn a lot from it very quickly and refine how we want to approach it,” Stevenson said. “Nobody’s got any silver bullet answers on that right now, so to a certain degree, this is experimental on our part.”
While The Gazette’s meter system is inspired by The New York Times’ system, it is still more restrictive, as The Times allows for free linking through social media sites and increased free access through search engine click-throughs.
With many free alternatives available—Huffington Post Canada and The Globe and Mail among them—outlets like The Gazette will stand out to readers looking for a specific regional focus, and targeting public relations messages to publications with limited free access should keep this focus in mind.
Beyond the meter, The Gazette hosts 23 blogs, all of which offer unlimited page views. Those looking to pitch stories outside of the metered paywall may turn there, with Gazette staffers covering topics ranging from local politics and green living to showbiz and health.
Likewise, Stevenson said, “We have the ability to turn on or off big breaking news stories. If there was some kind of big breaking news story that is unique to what we have to offer, then we wouldn’t put that behind the meter, but we can make that call on a story-by-story basis.”
While these points are specific to The Gazette, any lessons gleaned are valuable for the future, as Postmedia intends to roll out a metered system on more titles in 2012, and other Canadian papers, like The Hamilton Spectator, have also rolled out subscription access models.
In January, Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey told Marketing Magazine he wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar move by The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star in the near future.
Indeed, with more advertising dollars diverted from newspapers in Canada and elsewhere, we can only expect more paywalls erected in response.
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