Making Online News Pay – Pt 1 paywalls
I am currently exploring the various avenues for making money from online news as part of my MA Online Journalism.
Over a series of Posts I hope to explore the various methods of generating revenue from online content – looking at the various issues, and pitfalls along the way.
The Project
My idea is a website that offers short, exclusive video interviews with bands – often bands that would not get mainstream coverage elsewhere (e.g. radio and television) but have a small, but cult, following.
The Money Making Options
Paywall
- Standard Banner Ads
- Ad-content (more on this in future posts)
Paywalls
First, then – the big talking point of the moment, Paywalls.
I would not even consider a paywall model, were I providing standard, general interest news that could be read anywhere. Why would people want to pay for my content, if they could read it for free on a rival site? The beauty of the internet is the sheer volume of material out there, and the means by which to get at it. Websites, RSS feeds, email, social networks – they are all serious competition now for the news outlet.
- Image by tripu via Flickr
The Times is attempting to do exactly this with their paywall. Initial figures are not healthy (losing 2 thirds of their online readership). Of course, that means a third of their readers are happy to pay £2 a week for online news – and those figures may eventually work in their favour, who knows. This is The Times, however, they had more readers to play with in the first place. A small local paper that attempted a paywall would be looking at 33% of not-very-much – an impossible situation.
There have been more successful attempts at a Paywall, all of them offering something unique to the reader (the old ad-men phrase of the USP) be it useful information (in the example of the FT or Wall Street Journal), or “celeb-toriety” (right wing commentator RushLimbaugh in the USA). In fact, many of us already accept paywalls as a way of life – Sky TV subscriptions anyone? Again – offering something that you cannot get for free elsewhere.
The question really is not, WILL people pay for “exclusive” content, but how much?
The Content
- The content I am offering is exclusive video interviews with bands.
- These will be video interviews, which are quick to digest, interesting to watch and entertaining.
- The bands I am interviewing are small enough not to get mainstream media coverage (radio or TV) hence the content has a unique value
- The bands have a cult following within their field and there is a genuine interest in their activities
- Content will tend to gathered in batches (ie at festivals) so there is an opportunity to promote interest between similar bands
The Audience
- This audience are not a business audience – they are music fans (teenagers, early 20’s) who consume their magazines, news etc online via social networks, websites and apps.
- They will be happy shopping online, and in theory, would be comfortable using Paypal to sign up to a site
- However, would they see the value of this content? And how much would they be willing to pay for it?
Maintaining the Exclusivity
I would go to great lengths to maintain the exclusivity of this content – attending small niche festivals where no other media is interviewing, locking the content as private on video website Viddler, and embedding it behind a subscription page on my own site.
The downside of this is that the content itself cannot be shared, passed on or promoted – only the link to the page – for which you would need to have paid to access.
