Paywalls may not be perfect but are worth a try

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 | By Suzanne Bearne

The New York Times said on Wednesday it would introduce a paywall across its site in 2011. It’s a strange announcement when the implementation is such a long way off, but overall the model it has chosen is sensible.

The publisher will offer users free access to a limited number of articles and charge a fee for further reading. Details of how many articles or the price have yet to be disclosed.

The metered system is similar to that of The Financial Times, a successful use of the paywall model, which claims to have more than 1.6m registered users and 121,000 subscribers to FT.com, up 22% over the past year.

The model is a fantastic way to make sure visitors are teased with a few morsels of content to encourage repeat visits. Through this the title will still gain ad revenue, rather than moving fully behind a solid paywall thereby diminishing its ad revenues significantly.

It’s a big step but, as I’ve said in previous columns, the current newspaper model is dying. It’s not just a UK problem. This week French titles Le Figaro and L’Express also announced the start of paywalls.

Perhaps it’s a canny move to announce it a year ahead – maybe The New York Times is taking the Rupert Murdoch approach, whose similar announcement last year spurred on a number of other titles to take the plunge while News Corp has yet to start charging for content.

Yesterday The Guardian’s editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger slammed paywalls, saying users of the model could “sleepwalk into oblivion”. The playground catcalling is increasing as rivals publicly denounce each other’s strategy, but no one has a crystal ball. For publishers it’s about testing different business models more than ever before. Experimentation is the only safe way forward.

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