adrian monck

Paid content – the British newspaper experience

My colleague Neil Thurman has spent the last few months talking to online editors across the UK about how they see their businesses. That research, with the snappy title Paid content strategies for news websites: An empirical study of British newspapers online business models, is out now. You can download a preview here.

The headlines?

Here’s what Neil found:

  • British online newspapers that currently charge for news stories and op-ed – like FT.com and Independent.co.uk – see the benefits of dropping paywalls and making more content free. Archive content too is being freed up to make sites, such as TimesOnline.co.uk, more visible to search engines.

  • A buoyant ad market is driving the move freeward. The study confirms that ads are the main revenue stream online (90%, in some cases). But revenues from online services and commercial partnerships are growing by 20-30%+ a year at the Guardian.co.uk; whilst at the Telegraph.co.uk they contributed close to a third of total profits.

  • Editors don’t like/make money from digital editions.

  • Email services are a growth area.

  • Online ‘cannibalization’ concerns are a thing of the past at most newspapers.

  • All the papers were charging for something, with editors recognizing the need to expand commercial services.

Adrian Monck

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5 responses to “Paid content – the British newspaper experience”

  1. no mention of the role of UK news in the US market in the report? or did I miss it?

    An article earlier this week in the International Herald Tribune suggests that many prominent Britnews sites are getting more traffic from this side of the ocean.

    http://tinyurl.com/3bzvpz

  2. They’re certainly targeting the US – the Guardian hiring a US editor…

  4. The link to the article appears to be broken – I get a a “404” error.