News Home > News and Public Relations
New York Newsday Enforces Pay Wall for Online Content
One of New York’s daily newspapers Newsday has made the controversial move towards charging for its online news content.
Newsday announced that a pay wall would go up on Wednesday which would restrict users from accessing relevant content online unless they paid a subscription fee. Subscribers who already have the print edition of Newsday delivered will continue to have full access to the online content.
Some content will remain free to the public online, including classified online advertising, obituaries, weather, stock prices, community programmes and entertainment listings. Main featured content will only be available to those who pay the subscription fee however, with a $5 weekly price tag.
It’s a potentially dangerous move from the paper, particularly considering rival news sources such as The New York Times have not taken the plunge and continue to keep all of their online content free. Will customers really be willing to fork out an additional $260 (£158) a year just to access their news from that one source?
So far only the Wall Street Journal has made the bold step to charge for online content in the US, but the financial services offered by the news source fill a niche market which can demand a subscription fee. Newsday may have found that its online marketing revenues were insufficient to sustain free content online, but charging for content could further alienate the paper from its public.
It’s a similar problem that Rupert Murdoch has to deal with as the figure head of News Corp. Enforcing a pay wall will no doubt generate some revenue, but possibly at the consequence of customers fleeing to free content services. Suddenly the BBC licence fee seems like very good value for money.
News and Public Relations news posted by Lily Townsend on 23 October 2009
