A User-First Framework for Sustaining Local News - Harvard ...

The increased demographic information collected from registered and paying users
has not yet enabled the paper to increase its online ad rates.
The pay wall appears to have had little impact, so far, in protecting print
circulation.
Especially given economic conditions, Shine said he was not surprised by either of
the last two developments.
Pay Walls as Defenders of Print Circulation
An October 2009 study of paid content by the American Press Institute found that 11
of 16 small‐ to medium‐circulation papers listed protection of print circulation as one of
the main goals of their pay walls. 59 Walter Hussman, publisher of the Democrat Chronicle
in Arkansas, has become a spokesman for that approach, citing statistics indicating that
the average value of a print subscriber dramatically exceeds that of an online visitor. 60
In a time when newspaper circulation is falling nationwide, Edward L. Seaton,
publisher and editor‐in‐chief of the 10,304‐circulation Manhattan (Kansas) Mercury told
API that a pay wall erected in May 2009 was responsible for driving up print
subscriptions nine percent over the previous year.
E. Mayer Maloney, publisher of the 26,433‐circulation Herald‐Times in Bloomington,
Indiana, said he and his colleagues expected “the earth to open up and the fires of hell to
consume us” when they imposed a pay wall in October 2003. 61
Instead, the paper attracted about 2,100 paying, online‐only subscribers at $5.95 a
month and managed to help protect print circulation. With those results in mind, he has
introduced pay walls on two smaller papers he manages, the 12,500‐circulation Times‐
Mail in Bedford, Ind., and the 6,000‐circulation Reporter‐Times in Martinsville, Ind. The
Times‐Mail has 600 online‐only subscribers, and the Reporter‐Times about 300, according
to the API report.
Maloney’s boss, Schurz Communications president and CEO Todd Schurz, said in a
telephone interview that he encourages experimentation with pay models at all of his
company’s 11 daily newspapers, eight weeklies and TV stations in six markets.
But he confessed to what he termed his “single biggest worry” about pay walls: “In
instituting a pay wall, you want to stop the slide in print circulation. But in making the
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