Category Archive: 'Traditional media online'

Allentown Morning Call to Erect Paywall Oct. 10

Date: September 30, 2011 Topic: Traditional media online Tags: , , ,

The Allentown Morning Call is erecting a paywall on the same day (October 10) another Tribune-owned newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, will  also begin to charge frequent readers.  With this addition, we estimate nearly 60 American newspaper websites now charge for content. The Morning Call will charge around 35 cents per day or a bit over $10 per month for its digital subscription. Casual users will be allowed to view up to 10 articles and content items per month before being asked to pay.

Posted by KathyMcCabe
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The Baltimore Sun Will Be First Tribune Newspaper to Erect Paywall

Date: September 23, 2011 Topic: Traditional media online Tags: , ,

On October 10, The Baltimore Sun will become the first Tribune Co. newspaper to erect a paywall. In a memo released this week, publisher Tim Ryan outlined how the Sun’s new digital subscription will work:

  • To encourage readers to sign up at launch, the Sun will offer a special introductory rate of 99 cents for the first four weeks.
  • After the first month, digital-only subscribers will pay$2.49 a week or $49.99 for 26 weeks.
  • Print subscribers will receive a special reduced rate of 75 cents a week or $29.99 a year.
  • Non-subscribers will have free access to 15 web pages a month.

Posted by KathyMcCabe
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Are Comments Too Much Work? One Newspaper Group Thinks So

Date: September 21, 2011 Topic: Traditional media online Tags: , , ,

Are comments a necessary part of audience engagement or just too much work to moderate? Swift newspapers dropped comments in the spring and has announced that they won’t be coming back any time soon.

Randy Bagert, editor of Swift’s Greeley (CO) Tribune announced the comment ‘pause’ last April by saying, “Why don’t we just delete the worst of the comments, you ask? Well, we can. But it takes too much time to monitor.” At the time, he said discontinuing comments was just a test.

This week The Digital Test Kitchen reports that it is working on a test project with Swift and the Tribune research project  “to devise ways to rein in the sometimes-ugly and nasty nature of user comments on newspaper websites.” “Swift will not revive user comments on its newspapers’ websites until the company decides on and implements a new content management system (CMS) to serve all the sites.” The new CMS will not be implemented until 2012 or 2013.

Can a newspaper truly be part of the community dialogue without comments? (Some would argue the Letter to the Editor is still a viable option.) Or do busy site staffs simply not have the time for comment moderation?

Posted by KathyMcCabe
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Boston Globe Paywall Strategy: Run Two Sites, One Subscription-Only

Date: September 15, 2011 Topic: Traditional media online Tags: , ,

This week The Boston Globe launched BostonGlobe.com as an addition to its current site Boston.com. This is all part of the newspaper’s new online paywall strategy: BostonGlobe.com will start charging $3.99 per week in October for a digital susbcription (free for print newspaper subscribers) and feature content that runs in the newspaper and other hard journalism. Boston.com will remain free, supported by advertising, and feature event listings and e-commerce.

“What we noticed was that there were really two audiences going to Boston.com,” publisher Chris Mayer told TheWrap.com. “One type of reader was looking for general news and information, breaking news, anything that was happening, things to do and e-commerce — what you’d use a community portal for.”

This interesting split strategy may soon serve as a model for other newspapers who want to serve two very different types of audiences – one that is willing to pay for timely hard news and the other that is more casual and looking more for lighter local fare like events and shopping.

Posted by KathyMcCabe
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Local News Sites See Success With Paywalls

Date: August 26, 2011 Topic: Traditional media online Tags: ,

“I can’t say anything bad about the paywall. I think it’s been the best thing, or one of the best things, we’ve ever done,” says John Winn Miller, publisher at  The Concord Monitor. He’s one of three local news publishers/editors that Ellie Behling of emediavitals profiled in this fascinating story about local news sites where pageviews actually increased after paywalls were erected. Interestingly, Behling notes that three success stories she profiles all use metered paywalls (similar to The New York Times model).

Some lessons learned from local news publishers:

  • Tightening the paywall:  The Augusta Chronicle started with a paywall that allowed 25 free articles and has slowly tightened it to 10 articles per month.
  • Some advertisers are specifically interested in the paid audience: “”We have seen some interest in advertisers willing to pay specifically to have their ads served to the paying audience,” says Chronicle editor Alan English.
  • Remain focused on quality local news content: Jason Collingwood, web editor for The Tulsa World, now has his staff updating the site 80 to 90 times a day with hyper local news.
  • Requiring print subscribers to opt out of digital can produce great results: The Concord Monitor increased its print rates to account for the new digital access and gave their print subscribers the option of opting out of digital. Only 10% opted out, resulting in a  “tremendous boost to revenue.”

Posted by KathyMcCabe
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