What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism

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Columbia Journalism School | Tow Center for Digital JournalismSo the Times devised a pay scheme that it hoped would be porous enough toallow occasional readers (around 85 percent of the total) to browse the site forfree, but priced aggressively enough to generate significant revenue from its mostdevoted readers. 15 It was a difficult plan to execute—requiring more than 14months, and reportedly costing tens of millions of dollars. 16When the Times introduced the plan in March 2011, many found it to beunnecessarily complex. Users are supposed to be limited to 20 stories a monthbefore they hit the wall. But because there are so many exceptions dependingon how one accesses the site—for example, via Google, Twitter or a blog—evensome experts are befuddled by the plan. Staci Kramer, editor of paidcontent.org,which covers the digital media industry, wrote that “the logistics are far morecomplex than anything should be that doesn’t require a degree in quantum physics.”17 There are different rates for online, smartphone and tablet access, rangingfrom $195 to $455 a year for the full package. Consumers can’t get annual, oreven monthly, subscriptions, because everything is priced in four-week increments.And the price led one commentator to headline his blog post, “The NewYork Times is Delusional.” 18The Times is unusual among big publishers in that it doesn’t require print subscribersto pay anything to access its digital editions. Both WSJ.com and FT.comhave long charged everyone for online access, on the theory that digital editionsoffer utility, archives and tools that the print edition can’t. The Times is offeringits print readers a sweet deal: Weekend-only subscribers can pay as little as $327a year, and in the bargain get a digital package worth almost a third more. Timesexecutives insist this isn’t an effort to prop up the company’s more lucrativelegacy revenue. “We didn’t make this decision to bolster print,” Janet Robinson,the Times’ company CEO, said shortly after the pay plan debuted. “We madethis decision to create a new revenue stream.” 19 But given the way the offer isstructured, it’s hard to argue that the two aren’t closely tied. The pricing—whichis higher for tablets than for the Web—also reflects Apple’s decision to take a 30percent cut of subscriptions purchased through iTunes.A few weeks after the Times instituted the pay plan, Robinson reported thatmore than 100,000 people had signed up for digital subscriptions. 20 Most ofthose were enrolled for the introductory offer of 99 cents for the first four weeks,Paywalls: Information at a Price 77
The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalismaccording to a person close to the situation, so it isn’t clear how that will playout when those subscribers start getting billed up to $35 for every four weeks ofunlimited access.In the Times’ own story on its plan, a senior editor called the plan “essentiallya bet that you can reconstitute to some degree the print economics online.” 21 Infact, though, it is as much an effort to restore print economics to the print edition,by providing extra value to subscribers and giving them one less reason toforgo the lucrative newspaper for the digital edition.* * *And then there is the Newport Daily News, a 12,000-circulation newspaperin Rhode Island.In 2009, the News decided that it was almost impossible to make moneyfrom digital ads. “The people we hired to sell advertising on the Internet justnever did very well,” the paper’s then-publisher, Albert “Buck” Sherman, toldNieman Journalism Lab. 22 So the News took an unusual step: Print subscriptionswere priced at $145 a year, print/online combos at $245 and online-onlyaccess would cost $345.In other words, by forgoing the paper, a digital subscriber was on the hook foran additional $100. And Sherman wasn’t coy about the rationale: “Our goal wasto get people back into the printed product.”Some online-only content, such as videos and blogs, is outside the paywall; thesame goes for columns like “Clergy Corner” and “Advice on Pets.” But anyonewho wants access to the electronic edition, which reproduces the day’s paper,must pay. The company also operates a free site, newportri.com, designed to appealto tourists and others looking for recreational or entertainment information.In early 2011, the News dropped the price for print and online to $157, ora dollar a month above the print-only fee. But online-only access remains at$345—a price that current publisher William Lucey III says, in an interview, “ismore of a deterrent.” The amount was based on a scenario in which, “if everyonewanted only a digital product, this is what it would cost.”78
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