70 percent of publishers are in favor of paid content
While only 46 percent of publishing companies in the newspaper, magazine, and TV industries were in favor of introducing paywalls for online content before the global recession began in 2007, that figure now stands at around 70 percent, that are already using such a system or plan to transition their websites accordingly in the future.
According to Pressetext, this is the conclusion of a recent study presented by the Association of Online Publishers (aop) in the UK, which represents 28 media companies such as News International, the Financial Times, Trinity Mirror and the Telegraph Media Group.
The example of the Axel Springer publishing house shows that the debate about the introduction of so-called paid content on the online presences of media companies is not only gaining momentum in the UK, but also in German-speaking countries. Its CEO Mathias Döpfner indicated in mid-August that the free web content of the company's own publications is to be gradually scaled back. "In any case, Germany is already considering introducing a payment model for the online content of print products. It will probably be the major publishers who take the first steps in this regard. But no matter who pushes ahead here, they must first present a viable concept for paid content on the web," explains Holger Kansky, multimedia consultant at the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV), in an interview with Pressetext.
Especially in the current phase of economic hardship, no one in the industry can afford to fail with such experiments. "However, I don't believe that the introduction of a fee will be the only solution for refinancing online content. The payment concept must rather be seen as a sensible supplement to advertising financing," emphasizes Kansky. The biggest problem in this context, however, remains the question of how the online readership will react to the implementation of such plans. "Unlike with mobile web usage, people are used to free access on the stationary internet. I therefore believe that a switch to a paid model would be very difficult to implement," says Kansky. Anyone opting for a paid model would have to accept the risk of their readership migrating to other free online offerings. "The paid concept can only work with new, exclusive material that is also offered to readers and provides them with a certain added value," concludes Kansyk.
The example of the Axel Springer publishing house shows that the debate about the introduction of so-called paid content on the online presences of media companies is not only gaining momentum in the UK, but also in German-speaking countries. Its CEO Mathias Döpfner indicated in mid-August that the free web content of the company's own publications is to be gradually scaled back. "In any case, Germany is already considering introducing a payment model for the online content of print products. It will probably be the major publishers who take the first steps in this regard. But no matter who pushes ahead here, they must first present a viable concept for paid content on the web," explains Holger Kansky, multimedia consultant at the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV), in an interview with Pressetext.
Especially in the current phase of economic hardship, no one in the industry can afford to fail with such experiments. "However, I don't believe that the introduction of a fee will be the only solution for refinancing online content. The payment concept must rather be seen as a sensible supplement to advertising financing," emphasizes Kansky. The biggest problem in this context, however, remains the question of how the online readership will react to the implementation of such plans. "Unlike with mobile web usage, people are used to free access on the stationary internet. I therefore believe that a switch to a paid model would be very difficult to implement," says Kansky. Anyone opting for a paid model would have to accept the risk of their readership migrating to other free online offerings. "The paid concept can only work with new, exclusive material that is also offered to readers and provides them with a certain added value," concludes Kansyk.
