NYT Co. reports $15.7 million third-quarter profit. New York Times | Bloomberg | Times Co. press release The Times says circulation revenue grew by 3.4 percent, while total advertising revenue slipped 8.8 percent.
(Revenue in every advertising category was down, reports Jeremy Peters.) The Times reports it now has 324,000 paid subscribers to the various digital editions of the paper, compared with 281,000 at the end of the second quarter. The New York Times Company Reports a Profit. Should we ‘pay the wall’ to maintain quality journalism? Slovakian media goes behind the paywall. Yesterday nine news outlets in Slovakia joined together to put up a joint paywall in front of parts of its content – some more than others – as part of a new premium content subscription model by Piano Media.
The platform means users pay a monthly fee of €2.90 ($4.20) for unlimited access to all sites. Once users have subscribed they will automatically be logged in to all of the participating sites, which in Slovakia currently includes Pravda and SME, along with video portals, tv stations and magazines. Publishers have decided how much content they wish to place behind the paywall, some closing almost all their content to non-paying users while others are leaving general news free and instead selecting content such as commentaries as premium material to be paid for. The paywall launched yesterday with a free two-week trial, with charges coming into effect from 2 May. We spoke to Piano Media CEO Tomas Bella, about the reaction from within Slovakia so far.
Similar posts: Forbes: Times and NY Times paywall figures compared. Will the Shropshire and Wolverhampton walls pay? Part-paywalls have gone up at the UK’s biggest-selling regional daily, the Wolverhampton-based Express and Star, and at sister title, the Shropshire Star.
Breaking news will remain free but other content, such as football reports, are now behind the wall. But will Wolverhampton and Shropshire pay? At £2.19 more a month than the Times, is £12.18 too high a price for a monthly digital-only subscription? Last week the Times, which went behind a paywall last summer, announced that it has 79,000 digital subscribers and the Financial Times, which has been behind a metered pay model for 10 years as of yesterday, also claims success with 210,000 subscribers. But the Times and FT have their own reasons for tens of thousands of digital subscribers. Paywalls put up by UK regional newspapers have been less successful.
The exact cost may not be the deciding factor in whether readers decide to get their credit cards out. Similar posts: Second country expected to adopt group paywall later this year. Three months on from Slovakia’s group paywall going up around nine news outlets, with “promising results”, means a second small country is expected to adopt the model before the end of the year, according to Piano Media, the company which signed up the publishers and put up the paywall.
Tomas Bella, chief executive of Piano Media told Journalism.co.uk that the paywall generated €40,000 in the first month. The company aimed to sign up around 1 per cent of Slovakia’s 2.5 million internet uses in the first 12 months. He said that after three months the company has achieved two thirds of the target for the first year. Bella said: Piano expects to launch one more country this winter and it is likely that a few more countries will follow next year. Bella did not reveal which countries are expected to follow Slovakia’s model explained that serious discussions are talking place. #wef11. “Don’t be afraid” – this was just one of many messages given by a panel of publishers at the World Editors Forum today, who shared their experiences of erecting “paywalls” or what came to be termed by the panel as “leaky walls”.
The panel featured three news outlets which have all established paid-content systems in their own ways, although the general approach appeared to be the same, leave holes in the “paywall”. Dirk Nolde, managing editor of Berliner Morgenpost Online in Germany spoke first, outlining the site’s paid-content model which is free for print subscribers, or 4.90 euros a month. Only some content is placed behind the wall, including local news and sports, which are charged on different models, such as by day or month etc. “Make the assets paid”, he said. The site also offers a “first-click-free”, such as via Google or social media, which works three times a day. ” We are trying to be leaky with the paywall,” he added. We will give away more stuff, use a softer approach. #wef11: Publishers share paywall strategies and lessons learnt. “Don’t be afraid” – this was just one of many messages given by a panel of publishers at the World Editors Forum today, who shared their experiences of erecting “paywalls” or what came to be termed by the panel as “leaky walls”.
Sydney Morning Herald: The Australian to reveal paywall details this week.