Newspaper Paywalls—the Hype and the Reality: A study of how paid news content impacts on media corporation revenues

Digital Journalism

Volumn 2, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 179-194

  Myllylahti, Merja ^a  

^a AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

digital revenue; digital subscriptions; newspaper paywalls; online news; paid content

Indexed keywords

EID: 84977562614     PISSN: 21670811     EISSN: 2167082X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2013.813214     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Baker, William F. 2012. “A National Paywall That Works.” Columbia Journalism Review, February 14. http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/a_national_paywall_that_works.php?page=all.
2. Beadon, Leigh. 2012. “Temporary Paywall Removals Only Highlight the Fundamental Paradox of Paywalls.” Techdirt, June 8. http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=rupert+murdoch.
3. Beaujon, Andrew. 2012. “New York Times Co. Increases Digital Subscriptions by 13 Per Cent in Second Quarter.” Poynter, July 26. http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/182735/new-york-times-increases-digital-subscriptions-by-13-percent-in-3-months/.
4. Beller, Peter C. 2012. “Building the Great Newspaper Paywall.” Ebyline.biz Blog, July 5. http://ebyline.biz/2012/07/building-the-great-newspaper-paywall/.
5. Blight, David. 2012. “The Australian Finally Reveals Digital Subscription Figures.” AdNews, November 8. http://www.adnews.com.au/adnews/the-australian-finally-reveals-digital-subscription-figures.
6. Chittum, Ryan. 2012. “Owens’ Straw Man Army.” Columbia Journalism Review, June 12. http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/owenss_straw_man_army.php?page=all.
7. I.Chyi, Iris. 2005. “Willingness to Pay for Online News: An Empirical Study of the Viability of the Subscription Model.” Journal of Media Economics 18 (2): 131–142. doi:10.1207/s15327736me1802_4.
8. I.Chyi, Iris. 2012. “Paying for What? How Much? And Why (Not)? Predictors of Paying Intent for Multiplatform Newspapers.” International Journal on Media Management 14 (3): 227–250. doi:10.1080/14241277.2012.657284.
9. I.Chyi, Iris, M.J.YangMengchieh Jacie, and S.LewsSeth. 2010. “Use of and Satisfaction with Newspapers Sites in the Local Market: Exploring Differences between Hybrid and Online-only Users.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 81 (1): 62–83. doi:10.1177/107769901008700104.
10. Cook, Jonathan, and Shahzeen Attari. 2012. “Paying for What Was Free: Lessons from the New York Times Paywall.” PhD diss. University of Columbia.
11. Doctor, Ken. 2012. “Looking to Europe for News-industry Innovation, Part 2: Sanoma’s Big Bundled Success.” Nieman Journalism Lab, February 13. http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/02/looking-to-europe-for-news-industry-innovation-part-1-sanomas-big-bundled-success/.
12. Durrani, Arif. 2012a. “News International Reports 119,255 Digital Subs for The Times.” MediaWeek, February 14. http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/1117156/News-International-reports-119255-digital-subs-Times/.
13. Durrani, Arif. 2012b. “PPA Conference: Tim Brooks on The Times ‘Paywall Failure’ and Mail’s ‘World Success’.” PRWeek, May 9. http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/1131096/PPA-Conference-Tim-Brooks-Times-paywall-failure-Mails-world-success/.
14. Edmonds, Rick. 2012. “New York Times’ Circulation Revenue Lags Growth in Digital Subscriptions.” Poynter, July 27. http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/the-biz-blog/182864/at-new-york-times-digital-subscription-numbers-far-outpace-circulation-revenue-growth/.
15. Edmonds, Rick, Emily Guskin, Tom Rosenstiel, and Amy Mitchell. 2012. “Newspapers: Building Digital Revenues Proves Painfully Slow. The State of the News Media 2012. An Annual Report on American Journalism.” The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/newspapers-building-digital-revenues-proves-painfully-slow/.
16. Ellis, Justin. 2012. “Alan Rusbridger on The Guardian’s Open Journalism, Paywalls, and Why They’re Pre-planning More of the Newspaper.” Nieman Journalism Lab, May 29. http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/05/alan-rusbridger-on-the-guardians-open-journalism-paywalls-and-why-theyre-pre-planning-more-of-the-newspaper/.
17. Fahri, Paul. 2009. “Build That Pay Wall High.” American Journalism Review, July. http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4800.
18. Fairfax Media. 2012. “Fairfax Media 2012 Full Year Results.” http://www.fairfaxmedia.com.au/shareholders/230812_2012FullYearResultspresentation.pdf.
19. Greenslade, Roy. 2012. “How the Financial Times Achieved a Digital Milestone.” The Guardian, July 31. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2012/jul/31/financialtimes-digital-media.
20. B.Grueskin, Bill, A.SeaveAva, and L.GravesLucas. 2011. The Story So Far. What We Know about Business of Digital Journalism. New York: Tow Centre for Digital Journalism, Columbia Journalism School.
21. Halliday, Josh. 2012. “Times Opinion Tumblr Launches outside Paywall.” The Guardian, June 13. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/13/times-launches-tumblr-opinion-blog.
22. Hazard Owen, Laura. 2012. “Newspaper Association of America Shows New Trends in Paywalls.” PaidContent, August 1. http://paidcontent.org/2012/08/01/newspaper-association-of-america-shows-new-trends-in-paywalls/.
23. Ingram, Mathew. 2012. “No, Metered-content Walls Won’t Save Journalism.” Gigaom, August 22. http://gigaom.com/2012/08/22/no-metered-content-walls-wont-save-journalism/.
24. Jansen, Jim. 2010. “65% of Internet Users Have Paid for Online Content.” Pew Internet, November 20. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Paying-for-Content.aspx.
25. Johnston, Susan. 2012. “Newspaper Paywalls Accelerating.” Ebyline.biz, July 30. http://ebyline.biz/2012/07/newspaper-paywalls-accelerating/.
26. Kafka, Peter. 2012. “The New York Times Reports a Digital Success Story.” All Things Digital, August 6. http://allthingsd.com/20120806/the-new-york-times-reports-a-digital-success-story/.
27. Mashable. 2012. “Paywall.” http://mashable.com/follow/topics/paywall/.
28. Macnamara, Jim. 2010. “Remodelling Media: The Urgent Search for New Media Business Models.” Media International Australia 137: 20–34. http://www.academia.edu/830298/RemodelIing_Media_The_Urgent_Search_for_New_Media_Business_Models.
29. McCabe, Maisie. 2012. “FT Paywall Is ‘a Growth Story’ Claims Chief Executive.” MediaWeek, July 27. http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/1143169/FT-paywall-a-growth-story-claims-chief-executive/.
30. New Zealand Audit Bureau of Circulation. 2012. “Press Audit Results.” http://newspaper.abc.org.nz/audit.html?org=npa&publicationid=%25&mode=embargo&npa_admin=1&publicationtype=19&memberid=%25&type=%25.
31. N.Newman, Nic. 2012. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2012: Tracking the Future of News. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
32. News Corporation. 2012. “Earnings Release for the Year and Quarter Ended June 30, 2012.” http://www.newscorp.com/investor/earnings_releases_index.html.
33. Pearson. 2012a. “Pearson 2012 Interim Results (Unaudited).” http://www.pearson.com/news/2012/july/pearson-2012-half-year-results.html?article=true.
34. Pearson. 2012b. “Annual Reports & Accounts.” http://www.pearson.com/investors/financial-information/reports-and-results.html.
35. Piano Media. 2012a. “Home.” http://www.pianomedia.eu/.
36. Piano Media. 2012b. “Piano Media’s Slovene Revenue Hits a High Note.” http://www.pianomedia.eu/16/piano-medias-slovene-revenue-hits-a-high-note.
37. Radoff, Jon. 2009. “A Brief History of Paywalls.” Jon Radoff’s Internet Wonderland, November 30. http://radoff.com/blog/2009/11/30/a-brief-history-of-paywalls/.
38. Rosenstiel, Tom, Mark Jurkowitz, and Hong Ji. 2012. “The Search for a New Business Model. How Newspapers Are Faring Trying to Build Digital Revenue.” Project for Excellence in Journalism Report. http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/search_new_business_model.
39. Rosenstiel, Tom, Amy Mitchell, Lee Rainie, and Kristen Purcell. 2011. “Survey: Mobile News & Paying Online. The State of the News Media 2011. An Annual Report on American Journalism.” Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/mobile-survey/.
40. Rutt, James. 2011. “Aggregators and the News Industry: Charging for Access to Content.” NET Institute Working Paper 11–19, University of Cambridge.
41. Salmon, Felix. 2012. “The FT Backs Down on Paywalled Blogs.” Reuters, November 13. http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/11/13/the-ft-backs-down-on-paywalled-blogs/.
42. Schonfeld, Erik. 2010. “The Times UK Lost 4 Million Readers to Its Paywall Experiment.” Techcrunch, November 2. http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/02/times-paywall-4-million-readers/.
43. Smith, Chris. 2012. “Online Media and the Paywall Question: interview with CEO, Piano Media.” The Guardian, March 5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/2012/mar/05/online-media-paywall-piano-media.
44. Sorce, Patricia, Howard Vogl, and Haizhen Zhang. 2011. “Payment Models for Digital News Content in the US.” RIT Printing Industry Centre. http://print.rit.edu/research/show/158.
45. Starkman, Dean. 2012. “Digital Goes First at the FT (Updated).” Columbian Journalism Review, July 30. http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/paywalls_hit_two_more_mileston.php?page=2.
46. Sulzberger, Arthur Ochs. 2011. “A Letter to Our Readers about Digital Subscriptions.” The New York Times, March 17. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/opinion/l18times.html?_r=0.
47. Sweney, Mark. 2012. “Times and Sunday Times to Allow Limited Content to Appear on Google.” The Guardian, September 26. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/sep/26/times-sunday-times-google?newsfeed=true.
48. The New York Times Company. 2011. “Annual Report 2011.” http://www.nytco.com/investors/financials/index.html.
49. The New York Times Company. 2012. “The New York Times Company Reports 2012 Second-quarter Results.” http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=105317&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1718913&highlight=.
50. N.Thurman, Neil, and J.HerbertJack. 2007. “Paid Content Strategies for News Websites: An Empirical Study of British Newspapers’ Online Business Models.” Journalism Practice 1 (2): 208–226.
51. W.Van derWurff, and Richard. 2012. “The Economics of Online Journalism.” In The Handbook of Global Online Journalism, edited by E.SiaperaEugenia and A.VeglisAndreas, 231–251. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
52. White, Charlie. 2012. “Newspaper Websites with Paywalls Doubled in a Year.” Mashable, November 4. http://mashable.com/2012/11/04/paywalls-infographic/.
53. Woodhead, Ben. 2012. “Digital Subscription Surge Expands AFR’s Reach.” Australian Financial Review, August 10. http://afr.com/p/business/marketing_media/digital_subscription_surge_expands_E2cEyI1b3WIbrCuR1Q6iFK.
54. Wynseck, Dwayne. 2011. “The Transformation of the Global Media Industries.” In The Political Economies of Media, edited by Dwayne Winseck and Dal Yong Jin. London: Bloomsbury.
55. Zhang, Haizhen. 2012. “The Current State of Paying for Digital News Content.” MSc thesis, Rochester Institute of Technology.