How to make people pay for online news
Just 1% of people who want to read a news story that is behind a paywall decide to pay for access to it. The most common reaction is to seek the information somewhere else (53%). About a third (32%) say they typically give up on accessing the information, a US survey by Pew Research Center shows. A global study by Reuters Institute shows that the proportion paying for any online news remains stable at 18% across 20 richer countries – with the majority still happy with free offerings.
These are not encouraging findings for news publishers trying to diversify revenue streams by getting more digital subscriptions as printed newspapers have been a shrinking business for many years and more people seek the news via social media.
The problem with making people pay for access to digital news goes back to the days of the internet when publishers, keen to be on the new platform, gave away too much news and made news readers take it for granted that online news should be for free.
Reuters Institute’s annual Digital News Report shows that the proportion paying for any online news remains stable at 18% across 20 richer countries. Norway (42%) and Sweden (31%) have the highest proportion paying, while a fifth (20%) pay in the United States.
“By contrast, 7% pay for online news in Greece and Serbia and just 6% in Croatia”, Reuters Institute reports.
The Pew Research survey shows that the vast majority of Americans (83%) say they have not paid for news in the past year. Another 17% say they have directly paid or given money to a news source by subscribing, donating or becoming a member.
“At the same time, 74% run into paywalls at least sometimes when they are looking for news online. This includes 38% who say they come across paywalled articles extremely often or often.”
The most common reason to not pay is that they can find plenty of other news articles for free. About half of those who don’t pay for news (49%) say this is the main reason, the Pew report shows.
“Indeed, many news websites do not have paywalls. Others have recently loosened paywalls or removed them for certain content like public emergencies or public interest stories”, Peq notes.
“Another common reason people don’t pay for news is that they are not interested enough (32%). Smaller shares of Americans who don’t pay for news say the main reason is that it’s too expensive (10%) or that the news provided isn’t good enough to pay for (8%).”
25% of those who are 65 and older have paid for news in the past year, versus 12% of those who are 18 to 29.
8% of US adults in the lowest income group paid for news compared with 30% of those in the highest income group.
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