Online charging starts on local newspapers
December 3rd, 2009 by Mark Perry
A quiet revolution started this week in the small Yorkshire town of Whitby.
The Whitby Gazette became one of three newspapers from the Johnson Press stable to start charging for content. Readers of the Gazette as well as Northumberland Gazette and Southern Reporter now have to pay £5 for a three-month subscription - or 40p a week.
While it has been Rupert Murdoch and his News International titles that have caught the headlines about when they will charge for access, it is regional newspaper publisher Johnson that has taken the first bold step.
What is interesting is that this move covers local rather than the national and international content that Murdoch’s titles provides.
Johnson’s chief executive John Fry said that he felt that local newspapers offered a “unique” service for which readers may be prepared to pay.
According to HoldtheFrontpage it has seen an internal memo circulated by senior managers in one Johnson division that says “Customers are used to paying for content in-paper and we are simply transferring this thinking online.”
Is this all a bit of reverse psychology with the ultimate aim to drive people back to buying newspapers? Michael Woolf writing in Vanity Fair last month hinted that Murdoch’s aim in charging for content is to drive people back to buying newspapers. Certainly an interesting thought from a newspaperman through and through.
The issue of charging form content also surfaced at the recent Society of Editors’ conference where the editor of the Newquest title the Worcester News, Kevin Ward felt that local newspapers had: “more opportunity to charge for the web” than their national counterparts. He added: ”What we produce is niche. Nobody else sits in our courts every day. Nobody else scrutinises our public bodies.
One thing that is for sure is that newspaper groups will be watching the latest move from Johnson Press with interest.
Tags: content charging; local newspapers; national newspapers
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
Toe in water. Not a big enough test to tell anything about what would happen generally I suspect. Scale of city dailies changes the nature of the beast. The test would be something as substantial as The Sunderland Echo - it’s (U)SP is football and a Premiership following.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Although local news is less available online than national, I still don’t think charging for it will prove successful. I also don’t believe that it will drive people back to local newspapers. Users will be able to find the content they are looking for elsewhere online. All that the Whitby Gazette will achieve is driving traffic to rival local news websites that don’t charge for content as well as social networks, local council websites and hyperlocal sites such as http://www.dorchesterpeople.co.uk.
I think the only news websites that can get away with charging for online content are expert ones, such as the FT. Users will pay to view pages not just so that they can catch up on news, but so that they can read in-depth information written by experts in the field.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:59 am
I really don’t think this will work.
How can you persuade people to buy a paper: by making the alternative prohibitive and uncomfortable? Somehow that doesn’t work.
You have to encourage readers, have a product that is so good, valuable enough they will change their habits - no easy task.
I think paid content for now if for niche channels offering information their readers cannot get elsewhere and is of value to them
Rob