Media expert: ‘People will pay for NYTimes.com content’
A media columnist and former newspaper editor says the New York Times has enough “mission critical” content to attract people to pay for its online content. Alan Mutter explains the mindset behind the Times’ online meter payment strategy, announced today.
The Times unveiled its digital subscription plans, listing $15 a month as the least expensive package for readers interested in getting full online and mobile content, starting March 28. But is this metered pay system, where you get to read 20 articles a month free before being asked to fork over money, a smart path for the Times to take?
In an interview with a respected media columnist and consultant, it’s apparent U.S. newspapers are hunting for an additional revenue stream to stem the losses felt with the advertising decline. In 2010, ad sales at U.S. newspapers sank to a 25-year low.
“The New York Times has critical info certain people need,” says Alan D. Mutter, who writes on media trends for his blog Reflections of a Newsosaur and also pens a column for Editor & Publisher. “Academics, educators, government workers, intelligentsia, wealthy readers, they all turn to the Times.” That’s why, he says, charging for online content was inevitable for a storied franchise such as the Times.
“Publishers need to charge for online content, it’s that simple,” he notes. “But will it work? That remains to be seen.”
When news reached bloggers and Twitter users, many reacted with disappointment, wondering if this is newspapers’ final nail in the coffin, if the Times approached the online subscription plan with too heavy a hand. But Mutter points out casual readers won’t be affected by the payment plan; if you only read seven, eight articles a month on the Times site, you won’t be asked to pay. The heavy users will be getting the “please pay us now” message.
“All the studies I’ve seen conclude it doesn’t matter the price, heavy readers will pay for [their favourite site's online content],” Mutter says. “The question becomes, does the customer see enough value in the content to shell out money for it.”
What may also be on the minds of media executives is worldwide is how Times’ ad inventory will look post-pay system. A pay fence, as some are calling the Times’ idea, may deter some readers and could result in decreased pageviews. Mutter points out that isn’t always the case; he recently wrote about a Georgia paper that built a metered pay system and actually saw traffic rise 5 percent in the three months since the $7/month subscription plans were initiated. He wrote about the Augusta Chronicle, “So long as the newspaper has enough page views to produce enough advertising inventory to satisfy demand, the subscription revenue would appear to be sufficient to support one to four additional bodies in the newsroom.”
Also making headlines is the Times’ announcement concerning social media: the Times “will allow access to people who visit through search engines like Google and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There will, however, be a five-article limit a day for people who visit the site from Google.”
Mutter believes the Times will “flip some switches” to ditch that idea in the future. “They are doing this at first to monitor traffic granually,” he says, “because now people can come in through Google’s backdoor.” He says the Times may also want to profit off social media traffic. An interesting sidebar to the Times’ news is its plan to let Canadians try out the 20-article limit first, starting today. We tested that theory, registering and clicking on 20 articles. When we reached the limit, we received this message, saying we’ve accessed our last free article of the month (click to enlarge):
But the system seems to be faulty. We were able to click on many articles after that message popped up in our browser. There didn’t seem to be any enforcement of the warning. We weren’t asked to pay after clicking on around 32 articles together within a five-minute span. Perhaps it was a wise move, as Mutter says, for the Times to test-drive its digital subscription plan on another country before rolling it out worldwide.
New York Times announces its ‘pay fence’ digital subscription plan
The New York Times revealed plans for its digital subscription packages, rolling out worldwide March 28 but first being tested on Canadians starting today.
In a letter to readers, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, said this payment plan “will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our Web site and on mobile applications.”
Readers can access 20 articles per calendar month free, but when they check out the 21st article, they will be asked to subscribe to one of three packages: $15 for a month of access to the website and a mobile phone app; $20 for Web access and an iPad app; and $35 for an all-access plan. There isn’t a plan to just get free access to NYTimes.com; the $15 package also includes access to the smartphone app.
The announcement stresses “all New York Times home delivery subscribers will receive free access to NYTimes.com and to all content on our apps.” This applies to all subscribers, even if they only pay for the weekend papers.
Realizing the importance of maintaining a strong social media relationship with its readers, the Times “will allow access to people who visit through search engines like Google and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There will, however, be a five-article limit a day for people who visit the site from Google,” a Times article states.
The 20-article limit applies immediately to Canadians. Why is Canada a guinea pig for the Times’ digital subscription plan? The Times says it want to ensure as smooth a transition as possible for their 30 millions readers and are launching in Canada with one subscription plan to perfect the customer experience before the global launch on March 28.
Canadians can access the entire website and access mobile content with an introductory offer of 99 cents a month for the first month. After, readers will be charged the usual $15 a month.
On its mobile apps, the Top News section remains free for anyone, but any other sections require a digital subscription plan.
“This system is our latest, and best, demonstration of where we believe the future of valued content — be it news, music, games or more — is going,” Sulzberger said.
The Times’ payment plans are not the pay wall users experience when they visit the UK’s Times, for instance. Instead, some are calling it a “pay fence,” since it works on a metered system and allows you a number of articles free before asking for subscriptions. So will this strategy work?
“Consider the Times’ and other moves as getting up on a bicycle and learning to ride it,” writes Ken Doctor, an author who studies the economics of the newspaper business. “For 15 years, newspaper companies have been careening around on unicycles, trying to make digital ad revenue, in and of itself and with too little attention to core readers, work. Now, they are trading in those unicycles for bicycles.”
Advice column: Is citizen journalism a reaction to biased reporting and infotainment?
We’ve introduced a new advice column featuring questions and answers relating to journalism, new media, user-generated content, local news, and anything else we cover in our blog or get asked about. If you have a question for a future column, please contact us.
Question: Is journalism shifting back to the people (bloggers/Internet denizens)? It seems [to me] that people may be getting frustrated with how the news is being obviously spun or being sold as infotainment. Or is it just becoming more obvious?
– Trent Wilkie in Edmonton, Alberta
Answer: Thanks for the question Trent, and you certainly picked a topic that could easily be debated for hours.
We think it’s important to note balance, or how news is presented, varies widely from city to city, outlet to outlet, country to country. While there are certainly a number of people who feel their news is biased or lacking in substance, we want to be sure to distinguish there are a number of differences depending who you read for news or even what you consider to be news in the first place. Not all news media are going the route of pushing celebrity gossip or political spin so we wouldn’t apply that blanket statement to all media.
With that caveat intro, it’s also difficult to say definitely if journalism is returning to The People. It’s really not a new trend.
Citizen journalism
Citizen journalists and bloggers have long been reporting the news from their communities, even before CNN’s iReport or OhMyNews in South Korea began.
In the 1960s especially, people reported on government strong-arm tactics via underground newspapers and magazines, often unsupported by mainstream media. Furthermore, people wrote accounts on bulletin boards before they could get their own blogs. In this sense, citizen journalism is not new.
You’re correct in assuming the trend toward user-generated content in news is becoming more obvious (Disclosure: our sister site, Digital Journal, is a user-generated media network). Many news outlets are looking at ways to complement their coverage with reports from their audience. How many times have we seen our local broadcast ask us to submit photos and stories from this or that event/crisis? In the past, those user-generated reports were slapped with an “amateur footage” label, but we see that less often as media organizations attempt to fold their audience into their newsroom to varying degrees.
We’re now in the age of the “audience formerly known as the people,” as media critic Jay Rosen once put it.
We always advise media outlets to not just talk to their fans, but engage them in the media process. The result is a large pool of sources, more content and a highly engaged readership that has a reason to regularly return to their specific media outlet. Also, we’ve seen how bloggers and citizen journalists are winning credit for digging up stories that fall through the cracks, no matter where they post the news.
Bias, infotainment and spin
Regarding your point on “infotainment,” we definitely do hear a lot from people who are frustrated with the trend. We heard heard many people they are no longer following their favourite media outlet simply because of this cheapening of news.
That said, it also depends on what medium we’re talking about. On the Web, readers can pick and choose what they want to consume; in print they can thumb through a magazine or newspaper to skip over content that isn’t of interest (even though Justin Bieber might dominate the front page instead of an important story from the Middle East); but on television and radio the listener/viewer must follow along with the format chosen by line-up editors and producers. Infotainment plays a different role in different mediums, but live-broadcast mediums could arguably be a more frustrating user experience in this case because the news consumer has no choice but to sit through and watch or listen even if the content is not of interest.
In our experience talking with news consumers, we find more people are turning to the Web to get their daily digest of news because they can filter content (infotainment or otherwise) very quickly. In fact, these days more people get their news from the Web than traditional printed sources.
When it comes to “spin” in news, we also think this really depends who you watch and where you live. Anecdotally speaking, we hear about spin and bias in reporting most often from Americans who say politicization and polarization has trickled into news lineups.
The topic of bias in journalism is as old as the craft itself, but we think the trend of including more opinionated news as part of a daily news offering is emerging because people do actually want to consume news that falls in-line with their interests or political beliefs. The Web is helping people find those specialized news outlets, too.
If you look at American programs and personalities such as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann or Bill Maher (to name just a few), their opinionated voices have been added to the daily news lineup to offer audiences something other than hard news reporting. These shows have been given more exposure through networks because people do in fact tune-in and watch. Just because they’re on the air, however, doesn’t mean news is becoming more biased or politicized. They’re just shows that are part of the line-up and viewers know what to expect when they tune in. If they want hard news journalism, news organizations have countless other programs that cover that.
Today, no matter what type of news is being delivered (hard news, opinion, infotainment, bias or one-sided political Op-Eds), the simple fact is that there are a lot of choices for consumers and they can go anywhere to consume news or information that matters to them. When news junkies get frustrated by the production by their once-favourite news outlet, they turn elsewhere. It’s that simple.
- Future of Media editorial team
[Photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski]
Augmented Reality coming to iPad 2
By Chris Hogg
Fans of augmented reality (AR) won’t want to miss developments coming from German company Metaio who has put together a very cool demo using the iPad 2.
“We were really surprised to see how powerful the 3D hardware is,” the company’s CTO Peter Meier told TNW. “It allows us to create really sophisticated virtual content and interaction concepts.”
The company believes tablets introduce new and great opportunities for AR, including businesses who could use it for professional uses such as sales, training and maintenance. For those who missed a recent example of AR being used in this fashion, check out this video.
“AR will become a part of our daily lives, when AR experiences meet people, where they spend most their time: inside their homes or inside their workspaces,” Meier told TNW. “The iPad is perfectly built for AR shopping and AR casual games.”
The Junaio AR browser is expected to launch for iPad 2 soon, but here is a demo video showing what it’s capable of:
Report: More people get news from Web than newspapers
A comprehensive report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found more Americans learned about the news from online surfing than from newspapers in 2010. The State of the News Media annual report added, “The internet now trails only television among American adults as a destination for news, and the trend line shows the gap closing.”
In December 2010 the report found 46 percent of people surveyed said they get news online at least three times a week, eclipsing newspapers (40 percent) for the first time. Cable and local news, magazines and newspapers saw a sharp decline in their audience numbers, while radio’s stats remained stable.
Countering this troubling trend is some sunny economic news. Ad spending bounced back for every sector but newspapers. The report said “online advertising overall grew 13.9% to $25.8 billion in 2010, according to data from eMarketer.” It went on to say, “When the final tally is in, online ad revenue in 2010 is projected to surpass print newspaper ad revenue for the first time. The problem for news is that by far the largest share of that online ad revenue goes to non-news sources, particularly to aggregators.”
Other key findings include figures on news investments. The report estimates job losses in the U.S. newspaper industry of about 1,100 to 1,500 people, or 3 to 4 percent of the workforce. “By recent standards, that is an improvement, although it leaves the largest newsrooms in the most American cities bruised and necessarily less ambitious than they were a decade ago,” the report writes.
The report applauded how, in 2010, some important new media institutions began to develop original newsgathering in a trailblazing way. Yahoo added several dozen reporters across news, sports and finance and AOL hired 900 journalists, 500 of them at its local Patch news operation, although it had to let go 200 people from the content team after the merger with the Huffington Post.
The State of the Media report also touched on paying for news. Around three dozen newspapers erected some kind of pay wall and only 1 percent of those outlets’ readers opted to pay for articles. A Pew survey suggests that “under certain circumstances the prospects for charging for content could improve. If their local newspaper would otherwise perish, 23% of Americans said they would pay $5 a month for an online version.” Also, the report believes certain niche news site featuring financial news – such as Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal – are successful at charging for news but the model wouldn’t be replicable for general news sites.