Why most publisher paywalls are destined to fail

Picard: News organizations need to focus on creating value for users

Picard: Your content has to be exclusive and specialized.

Now that Google, Facebook, and other tech platforms have taken away most of their ad revenue, news publishers are realizing they need to get revenues from users to stay afloat.

Well, good luck with that. Most of the paywalls or freemium products they have created are doomed to disappointment.

Publishers will have trouble breaking their bad habits. They have been so busy delivering mass audiences to advertisers with increasingly frivolous or sensationalistic content, or delivering profits to investors by cutting key editorial staff, that they may not have the know-how or talent to produce content valuable enough that people will pay for it.

Is quality journalism sustainable? Here are 20 media organizations that are solving this problem

This post is part of a study that identifies 20 media organizations from 16 countries and four regions  --Eastern and Central Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States-- that have developed sustainable business models for high-quality journalism. This list is by no means exclusive. The examples were chosen to present a variety of solutions to this challenge. We welcome comments on other media we could have included.

-- James Breiner

Click graphic to enlarge.

Paywalls and micropayments start to gain traction

The loss of advertising and the complications of public funding are forcing digital publishers to look for ways to persuade the public to pay.

Surveys and actual market behavior show that a small percentage of digital users will pay, depending on the country, the media brand, payment systems, and technology platforms. For some publishers, that could be the difference between thriving and merely surviving.

(Versión en español)

The amounts some would be willing to pay are in the chart below, from Reuters Institute’s 2015 online survey of 24,000 users in 12 countries.

From Newman et al., Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2015 (p. 65). 

Click on chart to enlarge.

You create more value with 'community' than 'audience'

Versión en español aquí.

When I teach entrepreneurial journalism, the first thing I emphasize is the need to create a community.

An audience is just a group of observers.  A community shares values and a deep interest in a topic or geographic area. It often has a bias toward action. That is where value comes in.

Connecting these people and creating value for them is the beginning of a community. Only when you have connected them can you begin to get their financial support.

Memberships, not paywalls; sponsorships, not ads

I was reminded of the power of community, as opposed to audience, when reading Martin Langeveld's post for Nieman Lab on what is ahead for journalism in 2013.