Question on online pricing

Lee dropped the other shoe today and is going with pay-for-online at my local paper (Glens Falls, NY).

(I am guessing it will be corporate-wide.)

Here is my question.

It's $6.95 a month if you do not have a print subscription.

It's $1.95 a month if you have a paid print-edition subscription.

Maybe I am not paying enough attention, but I though most (if not all) papers gave basic online access away with a print subscription.

I am talking basic Internet access, not I Phone or other mobile apps.

Thanks.

 

Print customers are getting hosed. I wouldn't pay for online access to most local papers until those papers designed a decent website.

 

It is an excellent website, I will say that.

This was a terrific 30,000 daily until Lee started the cuts.

 

I'm no marketing expert, but that's dumb. It will create unnecessary work in having to deal with setting up the online subscriptions for people who already have print subscriptions, and it will piss off print subscribers who have to pay more and jump through more hoops to get the online version of the print product they already are paying for.

Why not just raise prices a few bucks across the board, include free online access to all print subscribers and offer online subscriptions for a couple bucks a month?

 

It seems as if most of the sports content on a Lee website is agate, which hasn't been formatted for the Web. At least that's what I've run across with Lee papers out West.

 

That is not at all true here.

This is a terrific newspaper sports web site with a lot of additional information that is not in the print edition.

PS: This is not the paper I work at, though I did string there and read it every day.

 

Someone wiser in the ways of ABC than I am tells me if there's a minimum additional charge for the website, beyond the delivery price, you get to count the subscriber twice.

 

The paper goes paywall today with free views. If you get a chance go read some of the 120+ comments.

http://poststar.com/news/local/post-star-to-begin-charging-for-online-content/article_8d5ed068-925b-11e1-bbf7-001a4bcf887a.html?mode=comments