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Half of Newspaper Publishers Believe Online Pay Walls Will Work

More than half of newspaper publishers believe readers will pay to access online newspaper content, according to a survey conducted by industry consultants Greg Harmon and Greg Swanson for the American Press Institute.

51% of publishers say they believe they can successfully charge for content, while 49% either aren’t sure or believe paying for content will not work, reports Alan Mutter in his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog.

68% of publishers said they thought that, even if readers object to paying for content, they would have a difficult time finding that information in other places, while 52% said they thought it would be either very easy or somewhat easy for readers to find replacement content.

More data from the study:

• 58% of publishers said they are considering charging for content, but 49% said they have no timetable in mind for how that will play out. 12% said they plan to charge for content by the end of the year, 18% said they will do so in the first quarter of 2010, and 10% said they would begin charging by the beginning of next summer
• 10% currently charge for some portion of the web content

In terms of how charging for content might play out:

• 38% say they will limit full access to stories to monthly subscribers
• 28% say they will likely offer monthly subscriptions as well as micropayments for individual articles
• 15% expect to offer monthly subscriptions, micropayments, and “day passes”
• 19% expect news articles to remain free but that they will produce content specifically for the website which would be behind a pay wall
• 9% say they may adopt a system which would make visitors pay separately for each story they want to read.

The poll was completed by 118 newspapers of all sizes in all parts of the country.

The American Press Institute (API) has partnered with ITZ Publishing and Belden Interactive, operating as ITZBelden, to monitor media companies’ online revenue initiatives, including pay for content. API is working with ITZBelden to produce surveys of local media enterprises’ ongoing and new revenue initiatives.

These results from the first survey are being presented at API’s Newsmedia Economic Action Plan Conference this week.

Newspaper companies including News Corp. and MediaNews Group are among those that have said they will begin charging for online content. News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch says the company will charge for all of its news sites, including FoxNews, by the middle of next year.