Ringier Romandie introduces paywalls
Daniel Pillard, head of Ringier Romandie, said on last Saturday’s episode of the TSR program «Forum» that Ringier’s weekly magazine L’Hebdo would introduce a paywall at the beginning of next year—following the example of American publications.
The time has come for the media to charge Google for the traffic it generates on its website, he said. "We have to learn to get paid for our content," Pillard said in the "Forum" program. He was confident about the future of print, especially as the development of digital advertising in Switzerland seems to him to be "relatively slow. The returns for publishers are also not worth mentioning. The web only generates "peanuts" for them," said Pillard.
In response to an inquiry from Werbewoche, the head of Ringier Romandie specified that not only L'Hebdo, but also Ringier's other French-speaking Swiss titles will soon introduce a paywall. TV8, for example, will catch up with L'Hebdo, Illustré will follow around March, and Edelweiss after that. Although the sites will continue to offer certain free services, such as a news ticker or blogs, "anyone who wants to read the e-paper or individual articles will have to pay for them in the future, regardless of the device from which they access them." Until now, Hebdo's e-paper, for example, was free for iPad users. The archives will also be chargeable, Pillard added.
Pillard considers the timing for the introduction of the pay mode to be suitable because "we have little traffic on our sites anyway. According to Net-Metrix Audit, Hebdo was visited by 94'000 unique clients in September 2012, Illustré came to 139'000 UC, TV8 to 25'000 UC. Edelweiss reported no numbers in September, but recorded 4000 UC in July and August. "So we don't have much to lose," Pillard opined. He put the total revenue from banner advertising on all Ringier Romandie sites at a maximum of 250'000 francs.
Markus Knöpfli
