Online pay walls not deterring newspaper readers

Newspaper publishers are making inroads into the Internet market, with the public becoming more receptive to paying for news content, according to data compiled for the Newspaper Association of America.
Traffic to newspaper websites has made significant gains over the last year despite an increased number of pay walls of varying forms at publications that include The Providence Journal and The Boston Globe. Average daily visits in September were 21 percent higher than a year ago and total visits by adults over 18 years old were up 20 percent. Unique visitors increased 9 percent and total page views rose 10 percent, according to data released by the newspaper association in October.
The data was tracked by comScore, an Internet-marketing research company that compiles statistics to study online trends.
The figures also showed inroads into key demographics. Newspaper websites are now reaching 58 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds, 62 percent of families and 75 percent of users earning more than $100,000.
Locally, The Journal and The Globe have launched new websites complete with pay walls, a feature neither had before. Each pay wall allows only for a headline and lead paragraph or two for users who are not subscribers. Globe management is hoping the format won’t deter those who only scan the headlines.
In October, The Globe launched an innovative system that provides a little of everything. A new website, bostonglobe.com was created as a subscription-only site. All content is behind a paywall with a subscription rate of $3.99 per week or $208 per year. “We have two brands for two different types of readers,” Christopher Mayer, publisher of The Boston Globe and president of The New England Media Group told Providence Business News.
“We recognize that there’s a growing willingness on behalf of the public to pay for news,” he said. “There are many different audiences out there and the new site provides a format for in-depth stories. Telling the news is valuable.” The Globe’s old website, Boston.com, remains free of charge. “Our biggest problem was that after some research we realized we had no brand recognition. About half of the people that visited boston.com didn’t realize they were reading The Boston Globe,” Mayer said. “We also recognize there’s a desire for breaking news as well as information on things to do, movies and connecting to ‘all things Boston.’ It allows for people to have a conversation but is also appropriate for readers who are out of our market area to catch up on things.”
The Globe is following the lead of its parent paper, The New York Times, which installed a metered paywall in March. Users can access 20 articles per month for free before having to subscribe. After reporting initial losses, total digital subscribers increased from 100,250 to 380,003 from March 31 to Sept. 30, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The Providence Journal’s new website, providencejournal.com, provides news highlights for the general public and an electronic version of the print edition that is free for an undisclosed trial period. Print circulation has dropped 7 percent over the last six months, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Parent company A.H. Belo is hoping the new site will help improve paper circulation. How the public reacts to paying for international, national and general state news – as opposed to regional or local stories – remains to be seen. Neither The Providence Journal, nor Robert Dercherd, A.H. Belo CEO, immediately returned calls seeking comment.
According to Rick Edmonds of The Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla., think tank for journalism, the proliferation of pay walls over the last year is starting to clarify how it will affect the newspaper industry. “In metropolitan newspapers, it’s still a bit of an open question. They don’t specialize in a specific type of interest and their service base might be a little too broad,” he said. “For papers like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, those newspapers have a specific audience, and as time goes on people will become more open to the fact that they will have to pay to subscribe to their services,” he said.
“What we’re seeing more of are smaller newspapers bundling their subscriptions, combining print subscriptions with e-papers. Down the road it seems that the e-paper might be a pretty good substitute for the paper version,” Edmonds said.
“If you’re not running credible news, then a pay wall won’t matter,” said Linda Levin, former chairwoman of the University of Rhode Island’s journalism department. “In cases like The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, they’re credible news sources and their subscribers would pay just about anything.
“Once you start charging you have to give the readers something,” Levin said. For example, USA Today charges $99 for an online subscription versus $143 for the standard paper. “With the Internet version there are more photos and videos, something you cannot get with a paper. A hard copy is finite, but you can do a lot of really cool things on the Web.”
She also said that publishers will need to adjust. “Remember, your readers grew up on the Web so they’re expecting more than just the daily paper on the computer screen,” Levin said.
As for the all-Internet newspapers such as Patch.com, Edmonds, for one, is more reserved. “I can’t make out what their business plan is and how they’ll compete. I know that they’ve had difficulty with their advertising; they haven’t been too successful.”
Scott Pickering, New England regional editor for Patch, said the company’s three-pronged approach to revenue centers on local, regional and national Internet advertising campaigns. “Based on everything I know, our plan remains to cover local news and to provide the service free to all users,” Pickering said. “It’s a fundamental approach; it’s who we are.” In Rhode Island, The Newport Daily News has been ahead of the print trend, erecting a pay wall in June 2009.
“We felt we could no longer give the news away for free,” said Sheila L. Mullowney, executive editor of the paper. Since then, the newspaper has offered a digital version of its print product for an annual subscription rate of $345 per year. A conventional newspaper subscription for the same length of time costs $145. The website shows the news headlines and a left click brings the user to a subscription page.
The concept raised eyebrows at its inception, but now it’s holding its own.
“Immediately we saw an increase in our single-copy sales and in the long term we’ve been able to retain the subscribers we have,” she said. “We also allow subscribers to opt into our online paper for an additional $1 per month and that’s worked well.”
If charging more than twice the annual delivery rate for the Internet service seems counterintuitive, it’s not. “The print version is still the basis for our advertising income so it’s important to keep traditional subscriptions attractive,” Mullowney said.
“It’s a time of change, it’s a different generation. We’ve been looking into the use of mobile devices and the Amazon Kindle. The technology is changing, and fast,” she said.
Despite taking away traditional newspaper advertisers and reducing daily paper circulation, publishers are adjusting to the new technology, and the public appears ready to pay for the service of providing news.
“I think people are starting to get used to the fact that reporting the news costs money,” Mullowney said. •

No posts to display