Putting up a pay wall

[Beef03]

I apologize if this has been discussed before and I missed it -- and if this is a better fit for the online journalism thread, moddys please feel free to relocate it -- but was wondering how many of you work at papers that have put up a paywall on your website for local news. My question is what kind of reaction did you guys get? I'm guessing most, especially initially was pretty negative, but was their any level of understanding from the public and most importantly did it work as far as people actually paying for a subscription either digital or home delivery? For those that haven't is there talk of your paper making the jump, and if not what's holding it back?

I'm not doing a study, just curious as far as an industry view/reaction goes towards paywalls. Thought it would be a worthwhile discussion in the least.

We did it about a month and a half ago. And while we still get letters about how we are greedy assholes (I know, wanting to actually get paid for a service, shame on us) we actually saw a 2 per cent increase in subscriptions, most of them home delivery, in July which is traditionally one of our slowest months and only about a 33 percent drop in page views. We were expecting a far greater drop in our page views.

 

[flexmaster33]

I wish our paper would go that route. For sports I put up capsules of most of our stories (full coverage in the print edition), but for features I'll often run the whole thing online.

Just got back from a Where are they Now? interview today and at the end I ask the guy if he gets a subscription or else I could mail him a copy of this issue when it comes out. He replied casually that he'd just find it online.

Sending out information is our job, but we need to be fostering paying customers for the service we provide. Ughh.

 

[Beef03]

Before we went to the pay wall I was careful about what I put up. Unless it was a gamer for our major junior hockey team I usually kept local stuff off until the morning especially with features, at least try to give people a reason to buy it in the morning. Now just about everything goes up in the night.

My understanding is we weren't making money off the site without the pay wall -- online advertising wasn't even covering the costs of running the site or if it was it was at break even -- and it was only worse when the lost subscriptions were taken into consideration because they could get it for free online. It took four years of hammering away at the higher ups for them to institute a pay wall. Finally they relented. The vocal public reaction at our audacity to do so has been frustrating but they are slowly shutting up about it.

 

[Gomer]

It's all about how you put up the wall. We did ours at the same time as a (horribly, poorly) redesigned website, so you can imagine how that went over.

To be honest though nobody has told us in the newsroom whether subscriptions went up, down or sideways.

The big thing we need now is an app for mobile devices and tablets - or at least a site that formats differently when viewed by one of those devices. I suggested it a year ago...

 

[flexmaster33]

It's all about how you put up the wall. We did ours at the same time as a (horribly, poorly) redesigned website, so you can imagine how that went over.

To be honest though nobody has told us in the newsroom whether subscriptions went up, down or sideways.

The big thing we need now is an app for mobile devices and tablets - or at least a site that formats differently when viewed by one of those devices. I suggested it a year ago...

yes, this is the future of the biz...get the information out for the subscriber price. I don't are if you read it on paper, on your Kindle or on your laptop, but we should expect readers to pay for our product.

 

[rebelpaul]

We put up a pay wall last July, and the paper itself hasn't seen a massive drop off in home delivery. Our page views are steady and are in relation to what our numbers were last year. We're working hard to increase our visibility and convincing people to come to our website.

 

[Beef03]

It's all about how you put up the wall. We did ours at the same time as a (horribly, poorly) redesigned website, so you can imagine how that went over.

To be honest though nobody has told us in the newsroom whether subscriptions went up, down or sideways.

The big thing we need now is an app for mobile devices and tablets - or at least a site that formats differently when viewed by one of those devices. I suggested it a year ago...

We did ours with a redesign as well. The redesign isn't horrible, but it definitely isn't as smooth as it could be. It certainly is better than our old site which was about five years out of date design-wise, at the very least.
I also recommended we look into getting an app about a year and a half ago and am still waiting on that to come to fruition.

 

[Shoeless Joe]

We did it about a year ago, I think. There was some initial sniping from the public, but it's my understanding is that our printed delivery circulation increased because the "I can get it for free crowd" no longer could.

There were some direct to internet subscriptions, too, but I think most were a combo because that was the best deal. If you signed up for a printed subscription, you automatically got full web access.

There was one knucklehead who called and actually said, "Y'all are just trying to make money off people." to which I replied, "Yes. Don't you expect to be paid when you go to work?" he just said "Oh, well, yeah" and hung up.

 

[Beef03]

There was one knucklehead who called and actually said, "Y'all are just trying to make money off people." to which I replied, "Yes. Don't you expect to be paid when you go to work?" he just said "Oh, well, yeah" and hung up.

We actually had one local radio station phone the newsroom -- our web editor I believe -- asking for a free online subscription so they still had access to our local news for their "news cast". This same local radio station before the pay wall once phoned our web editor up because it was almost 9 a.m. and we hadn't updated our website yet and they needed him to do so so they could put together their "news cast". I believe both times he laughed and hung up on them, among a few other choice words.

 

[prezclinton]

How many of you put up a pay wall, though, with a direct competitor that covers 50 percent of your area or more? People like free and if you have competition then you're taking a big risk with a pay wall, no?

 

[Jake_Taylor]

We did it about a year ago, I think. There was some initial sniping from the public, but it's my understanding is that our printed delivery circulation increased because the "I can get it for free crowd" no longer could.

There were some direct to internet subscriptions, too, but I think most were a combo because that was the best deal. If you signed up for a printed subscription, you automatically got full web access.

There was one knucklehead who called and actually said, "Y'all are just trying to make money off people." to which I replied, "Yes. Don't you expect to be paid when you go to work?" he just said "Oh, well, yeah" and hung up.

I love this one. One time when somebody complained we were covering the local team with a winning record a lot more than the winless team she said that "Y'all are just trying to sell papers." I said, "yeah, that's the business. Do you go down to the Ford dealership and complain they are just trying to sell cars?"

 

[Bamadog]

We put a paywall about a year ago and the complaints just kill me. "Well, it used to be free."

"Well it used to be free on the website." Well, Cokes used to come only in bottles, movies used to have original plots and gas used to cost a $1 a gallon. Just because it used to be a certain way doesn't mean it is ever coming back like that again.

Or I love when people call and ask if I can send them a story, for free. I always ask them if they get free milk and eggs from Kroger and when they inevitably answer no, I ask them why would they think they can get my commodity, information, for free as well.

Once you devalue your product by giving it away, it's hard to make people see that it has value again. It's a matter of fixing the barn door after all the cows run away. But it's better than nothing in our case.

 

[wisportswriter]

We just went to a pay wall. Naturally, the backlash was fierce, albeit quite stupid, though we (as an industry) are more than partially to blame for their conditioned way of believing they should get our product for free. There was the occasional rational voice that asked the howlers why they expect to get their news for free, but those were certainly the exception.

Anyhoo, it's early and I haven't heard whether it affected our print numbers, which were pretty strong to begin with. We didn't get a ton of online-only subscriptions right away, and I'm sure the page views are down at least a little, though I haven't heard those numbers either.

The one encouraging thing I did hear is we had a ton of our print subscribers activate their online account (which is free with a print subscription but had to be activated to use). That was a good sign, because it means at the very least our print subscribers are also reading the web site during the day.

Mr. President makes a good point. I'm sure a big part of the reason we had the courage to do this as a company was the fact we dominate our media market. There is no competing daily newspaper within 60 miles of us in any direction, no TV station in town (just bureaus from stations about an hour away) and most of the local radio stations' news broadcasts consist of them reading our stories on the air. So we were certainly in a position of strength to do this.

However, Gomer also raises a good point. At some point, and not too far down the road, all news will be distributed electronically. And since the free/ad revenue model hasn't worked for hardly any newspaper to this point, we need to recondition readers to expect to have to pay for our product.

 

[Editude]

We recently put up a well-chronicled pay model after the previous attempt was a Select whiff. I do find it odd that Media News is not giving a digital subscription to a print subscriber for free; customers who read the paper and view the website are among the most valuable and relevant.

 

[Beef03]

How many of you put up a pay wall, though, with a direct competitor that covers 50 percent of your area or more? People like free and if you have competition then you're taking a big risk with a pay wall, no?

This is a very good point and Wisportswriter hit on it to. We also are the paper of record in our area, so that made it easier, although we are basically an hour-and-a-half between two major cities -- both of which have two major dailies each that are free online -- and they sort of cover the region but not really. We heard a lot of "so long I'm going to Paper X, because they aren't greedy, etc." But I think that was more the minority and there is talk that they are apparently looking at pay walls as well. It would be a lot more difficult if they were direct competition in our city, almost a wait for them to make the first move kind of deal.

 

[joe_schmoe]

We went not too long ago. Not sure about the numbers thought they told us industry trends indicate print subscriptions go up when you put the paywall up. I just wonder if those numbers are just the people that used to subscribe then quit because the info was online for free.
We actually have quite a bit of competition. Several TV stations cover all the same high schools and colleges and at least 3 other dailies cover most of our area as well and only one of those has a paywall. We just have better writers.

With our paywall, we try to provide much more detailed coverage behind the paywall. News people put up videos and we have the extra photo packages, etc...They hope to have HS football highlights, but not sure how that will work because we don't have time to come in Friday night, keep stats, shoot video, write story, edit video, etc... But otherwise I'm all for the idea.

We used to have a local radio station that would read our news pretty much verbatim over the air, so some of our reporters who knew their stories would be read would start putting in phrases like "the Podunk Press reported." "in an interview with the Podunk Press." If they were going to steal our work, they were going to give us credit, or at least be forced to change a phrase or two.

 

[Gomer]

One interesting thing happened last week at our place. We made all stories free to read after they'd been up for 24 hours.

Like everything else, this decision was handed down to us, I found out about it by accident in fact. But the response I've seen locally has been positive. What worries me is if people now think 'oh, I'm fine with reading the news a day late and not paying anything.'

Anybody else in this situation? Am I right to worry about it?

 

[UPChip]

Ogden claims they're studying a paywall model but hasn't implemented it for fear that it will kill insert revenue - I suppose the logic is "If I'm already paying for the paper, I'm not going to pay for the paper version."

 

[JoJo]

My paper put up a paywall about a year ago. Shows the first couple of graphs of our stories then the rest is behind the wall. Of course the whiners were in full force for the first few months, but it's pretty much leveled out now. I heard our subscription numbers were doing well for those first few months. Not sure exactly how well.

When we were free online, we were unrivaled in our area. Some of the towns in our coverage area have weeklies, but there were no other dailies around to really provide news.

The worst thing to come out of us putting up our paywall is that it led to the birth of a free website (backed by money from a powerful family in town) that basically tries to publish the same things we do, including obits. I've heard quite a few of the cheapskate portion of our readers talk about how they go to our site to read the headlines and first 2 graphs then they go to the free site to read the rest. Bastards.

 

[Versatile]

Ogden claims they're studying a paywall model but hasn't implemented it for fear that it will kill insert revenue - I suppose the logic is "If I'm already paying for the paper, I'm not going to pay for the paper version."

Most places with paywalls that I've seen have made it so that the print+online subscription is only slightly more, if more at all, than the online-only subscription. If anything, a well-developed paywall could be a boon to print subscriptions.