Once the omelet is made, it is hard to put the eggs back together.
Check out this article regarding Newsday, the local newspaper on Long Island, and how it went from a free to paid subscription model on the web.
To date, this report says they have attracted 35 paying subscribers in 90 days generating $9,000 in new revenues but their web traffic is plummeting which will certainly detract from ad revenues.
The switch from free to paid will be a very tough nut to crack. It is hard to compete with “free and better.” Gulp. Just gulp.
Ted – There is more to this. Newsday’s quality has been on the downswing for a long time. They offer very little on top of news that can be found elsewhere. Also, the new paid model coincided with a horrible website redesign (image something built in 1997). I believe NYTimes and WaPo could make it work only because they have reputation for quality and sharp user friendly websites
It will most certainly get people to pay for content instead of the usual free ad-supported model – however, nobody can predict how much. For example, The NYT will definitely see it’s fair share of web subscribers but at the cost, as Ted already stated, of losing precious advertising due to decreased web traffic. Web ads have been seen to be somewhat ineffective on websites except for places such as google (and probably other search and popular websites).
Rupert stated it best – who would have thought 30 years ago people would pay for TV channels or the Radio (this is debatable as SiriusXM clearly isn’t doing well)? Time will tell on this one. I can say that it will probably be good for the Internet (maybe a rebirth?) – it will allow newer websites to take the place of popular free websites that go to a pay model. I myself would like to get in on this one !
Do you think the iPad may get people into the mode of paying for content the way that iTunes got them to pay for digital music? Maybe Apple’s walled garden could save at lease some of the newspaper and magazine business. I know, I would pay a few bucks for a multimedia edition of the Post on my iPad if I knew the content weren’t available easily for free somewhere else. The same way I shell out 10 bucks for an album.