Would you really read columnists etc if it was pay-per-view online?

[mrsbaldwin]

The Observer Woman thread got me thinking about this ...

When media outlets eg newspapers move to the brave new world of paid-for content online who would pay to read lifestyle columnists, (including 'mummy columns' eg that one in Times Slummy Mummy).

Even though I will click on some of these types of items in the Times (or whatever) at the moment, if I had to pay I wouldn't. I'd only pay for hard news or perhaps some specialist article on a subject of personal interest (which could include fashion).

If everyone was like me what happens to all that content? Does it disappear ie no more lifestyle columns? Or do the outlets give it away free to readers who say they match the right demographic? For example I buy a package of hard news plus the fashion page and they also say 'have this article by Polly Vernon free'?

there's no way i'd pay ten p, that's ridiculous. i'd pay a couple of quid a month and click on articles until the money ran out, like a pay as you go paper, so it would have to be a fraction of a penny to make that worthwhile.

It isn't wrong though, is it? To charge for content? Initially free online content was a loss leader for the print editions, but the transistion to a screen culture makes that no longer a realistic model?

I like the OP suggestion of packaged user-profiled online content for a fee. Building your own newspaper, to suit your interests. Then you would be paying for a service over and above the content.

That is a common suggested solution to the problem of an abundance of free content -- that copyright holders have to start to provide services over and above pure content in order to compete against free (legal and illegal) availability.

Perhaps, even, the online news content could continue to be free and one might pay just for the individually tailored 'edition'.

The thing is it has worked in the States - the online version of something like the Wall Street Journal (I don't think it is that one, though) is now pay per read, and people do actually pay to read.

I don't think that I would. There are a couple of columnists who I love and would probably part with a couple of quid to read, but basically I expect to get online news for free.

Sorry - just read onebat's post. Yes, the WSJ, and I hadn't realised it was only partially paywall.

If there was no possibility of getting free, reliable news online, then I would far rather pay a yearly subscription and get everything. Although I would never, for example, buy a sports paper or miss the sports pages if they fell out, I do occasionally skim them or read an article. So I would not want a customised paper that omited sports.

As I don't buy a paper every day, I wouldn't want my subscription to be based on a daily rate that presumed I would use it every day. I would also want easy access to back issues.

But I don't want to pay every time I access an online journal or article. That would put me off completely.

I have a subscription to the Economist, which gives me online access, but that's the only site I could imagine paying for.

Previous poster is right about Murdoch having fuck-all of a clue when it comes to the internet. Every time he reads about Facebook it must be a dagger to his MySpace-owning pebble-like heart.

I've bought many things having seen them in online adverts (my flat being the biggest - the newspaper in my city has a lock on property advertising). The market is out there - the newspapers just need to find a way to make it work for them.

As someone who spends their working week wrestling with academic online subscription content I'm watching this with interest.

Granted, before the Internet, and in its infancy, we were happy to read one paper - maybe two - and tell people about interesting articles rather than necessarily show them. That's not the case now though.

No more mumsnet links to the Daily Mail, unless we're all subscribers, can we really stop the way we browse media and go back to just one site, maybe two? Dunno.

My professional experience is that people expect to get everything online, immediately, and they get very cross when asked to pay-per-view even when it's exactly what they want. They often go elsewhere instead, and that's for work material.

Agree shona. It is the necessity of subscription and the consequent lack of immediacy, more than the small fee, that some people find most irritating. I often need access to journals and C+P a phrase from them into google. If the hit takes me to a pay-for page I just grunt and google round it or do without. I don't even look at how much the service would cost.

C+P a phrase from the needed article I mean

btw everyone, you can get fantastic free access to quite a few online resources via your local library membership, if your library is on the ball. The brilliant Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for example.

Perhaps libraries could subscribe to online newspapers on our behalf -- just like people used to go into their libraries to read print papers.

I saw an interesting article via Reddit (so I can't find it again) about what a Sky-style Internet content subscription model might look like.

So for £9.99 a month you might get the BBC website, The Guardian and a lot of other stuff bunged in to make it look like a good deal.

Then there'd be other packages say YouTube, Facebook and a load of filler dross for another £9.99 a month, and so it goes...

Murdoch would loooooove that.

No, I wouldn't pay to read online newspapers. They would have to improve their content first.

all v interesting.
Must go but wanted quickly to share the fact that if you hit a paywall, cut and paste the headline into google. When the results come up you will see which is the paywall one because it will be in purple or whatever is your 'been there,read that' colour.
Often you will be able to access it that way.

I would not pay for online news at the moment as it is available from other sources free. I do see that this is going to become more of a problem as less newspapers are sold and advertising revenue falls.

There is not an easy answer.

In theory, I would not have a problem paying a monthly fee but then I would likely be limited to one or two newspapers. When you see how often MNetters link to various publications, then you can see how difficult that would be. Would we then have to pay to view the article linked to? I suspect most would not bother.

would also raise hideous copyright spectre for MN and anyone else who's mainly user-generated-content, because people will cut and paste.

But can you imagine where we'd be without "link here to article

aubergine is right. Someone has to pay to employ journalists, find news and explain it in a way that is interesting and factual and complies with the law. And select the interesting bits. God knows who, though.

Thing is, when the Tories get in, the BBC will suffer - so we may well not have the same breadth and depth of online content available 'free'. (They have signed a devil's pact with Murdoch junior, who hates the Beeb - compared it to Stalin in a recent lecture and certainly wants to kill it off as the chief rival to Sky.)

Here's a link to the internet subscription idea Shona was talking about. That's what Murdoch would like to see happen to the internet.

God we're so spoilt aren't we? "why should we pay?" "I expect it for free".

And it's not the fault of the man and woman in the street. It's the media owners (all of them - let's not forget how quick the Guardian was to get online) with their desperate rush to put all their content online for free. Yes it was short-sighted, but who know that free content would become the accepted norm? And that the advertising revenue wouldn't be the gravy train they all thought it would be?

Fwiw, I would pay. Because I support good journalism and it will die.

?? briefs ??
thought it was sh/h for camouflages - have I made a fo-par?

I think media owners didn't want to be left behind. And assumed they'd made money from advertising.

We've already been through the dot com bubble bursting a few years ago. I worked for emap at the time and they reduced all their websites and webteams down to the bare minimum. Now it's built up again, but there's still no revenue stream.

Murdoch may be wrong, who knows, but someone is going to have to find a business model that works here.

I'd like to see evidence of all this "good journalism" everyone is talking about. The mainstream media are in bed with power, so I'm not particularly convinced of their value anymore.

The only good investigative reporting I've heard about recently is that American journalist who put in the freedom of information request that started the whole expenses scandal, and I don't believe that she was working for a newspaper at the time.