Paying For Content ... Has It Been Free For Too Long? - Steve Yanovsky

I recently read an article about the trend to make consumers pay for the content that they used to get for free online The New York Times started doing that with a modified pay wall a few weeks ago They will allow us a certain number of quotfreequot articles a month and then they have us pay Being the quotpaper of recordquot many of us are used to reading it every day and will miss access to it online unless we pay up So they are betting that we willThe vast majority of web sites are still free and we can access them whenever we choose to We can read the same news covered in The Times but not written by the same people with the same point of view Point of Difference will be key to the success of online subscriptions Because there are a myriad of choices on the web that we don39t have to pay for we will only pay for those sites that have a strong personality one that we like and probably agree withThe Daily Rupert Murdoch39s latest product introduction does have a point of difference Brought to us by the same company that owns the Fox News Channel which has a distinct personality there will no doubt be many people eager to pay to read the Daily on their iPads The Daily potential audience needs to get used to paying for an online version of what is available elsewhere As with all new ideas changing behavior takes time but eventually if consumers see a value in what is being offered they will do so Electronic banking took a long time to take hold as did hybrid cars Now they can39t make the cars fast enoughPaid content in digital is not going away It will become more pervasive in the next few years as publications look to generate the lost income from the reduction of offline subscriptions They will be forced to charge for pay walls altogether or for specific content that they deem as premium One hiccup in all that will be double charging their offline subscribers If someone is already paying for their favorite magazine or newspaper offline will they expect to get access online for free Or at a deep discount It appears that the publications have not addressed that expectation in their model The current model says you pay for the hard copy and then you pay again for online access I don39t think that the consumer is going to accept thatI recognize that basic cable networks generate income from two revenue sources subscription fees and advertising It was only a matter of time before publications translated their offline dual income streams to the online world but how fast the adoption is and how much it will cost remains to be seenSteve Yanovsky is a senior partner at Brand Strategies LLC a marketing and branding consultancy focused on media and entertainment companies Steve can be contacted at syanovskybrandstrategiesllccomRead all Steveamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media MediationsCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerMediaBizBloggers is an openthought leadership blog platform for media marketing and advertising professionals companies and organizations To contribute contact Jackmediadvisorygroupcom The opinions expressed in MediaBizBloggerscom are not those of Media Advisory Group its employees or other MediaBizBloggerscom contributors Media Advisory Group accepts no responsibility for the views of MediaBizBloggers authors

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Paying For Content ... Has It Been Free For Too Long? - Steve Yanovsky

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