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'?

dizietsma, the Telegraph and Sunday Tel alone had loads of people working intensively for weeks on the exes scandal - no-one would have had a clue what was going on if you didn't have journalists to dig through all the reams of information and make sense of it. And one journalist alone could not have done it.

Does anyone else remember the TImes/Sunday Times having a subscription site some years ago? (Please tell me I am not the only one who remembers that far back)

I binned it until it became free to view.

Some media content is becoming free though isn't it? The Evening Standard in print form and online is free, relying on advertising for revenue, so my readership could well go there.

But the newspapers must be finding it increasingly tough. Had a phone call last night offering me discounted readership of the Telegraph and the DM are running an online survey at present to ascertain which newspapers people buy and on what days and what sections online readers log on to see.

Most media content is free to the user/browser/reader. That's the problem.

Heated, the Evening Standard is allegedly losing money at a huge rate as the advertising revenue just isn't enough.

I would pay. We (DH & I) already subscribe to the FT and read it mostly online. I'd happily pay for Twitter, can't imagine why they haven't started charging yet, and I'd pay for the Guardian even if I didn't read it that often (although I do) just because, like the BBC, I believe it's A Good Thing, i.e. a public good.

The method? Why does no-one do micro-payments that tot up how many articles you read at a cheap rate (1p each?) and charge you monthly or quarterly by direct debit in the background?

The log-in thing is a good point - it would annoy/ deflect me too. I think online tracking will have to get to the point when cookies will do it for you without your having to do anything. I'm comfortable with that if it provides me with a service, but then I work in marketing so I don't have a lot of the privacy concerns that a lot of people do, though I can understand them. I don't mind the data trade-off if it provides me with a service.

As for investigative journalism, you only have to look at the Paul Foot awards in Private Eye. The Eye, incidentally, is brilliant at it, and was running the Trafigura scandal way before Twitter picked it up. And remember which paper ran the front page that told everyone about the injunction on reporting the affairs of Parliament? The good old Grauniad. And I agree with the poster who mentioned the Telegraph and expenses. That deserves to be paid for, it's provided a service to us all.