Top reason globally for paying for news? Mobile access

Richard Fletcher of the Reuters Institute has produced an in-depth analysis of the top reasons people around the world gave for paying for news online.

The Digital News Report 2017 included interviews of more than 70,000 adults in 36 countries.

Fletcher observed that the most common reasons people gave for paying were they wanted access on their mobile devices (30%), they like to consume news from a range of sources (29%), or they were offered a good deal or package (23%).

My take on Fletcher's data: The message to digital news publishers should be clear: they need to make sure their content displays rapidly and adapts well to the small screen--responsive design. Also, they should be testing various prices and packages for online content to see which ones produce the best returns. 

When they trust media less, they're willing to pay more

Alfonso Vara-Miguel

A new study of internet users in Spain shows that those who trust "the media" less are more willing to pay for news online. 

The explanation for this counterintuitive behavior is that those distrustful folks "are willing to pay for those specific media that they trust", according to the researchers, Alfonso Vara-Miguel of the  Universidad de Navarra and Manuel Goyanes of the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid.  

(The full text of their article is in Spanish:  "The probability of paying for digital news in Spain," in El Profesional de la Información.)

In other words, trust and confidence have an economic value that media organizations can monetize. 

Manuel Goyanes

Getting people to pay

Media economists like to say that the Spanish are legendary cheapskates when it comes to paying for any form of media. But the researchers believe they have identified some of the market segments most likely to pay for news. 

They base their conclusions on the Digital news report 2016, which came from a survey of a representative sample of 2,100 Spanish adults, executed by YouGov and coordinated by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University. The most relevant findings follow.