In a study of 27,000 people across 52 countries, Nielsen found that consumers might pay for content, that is if it is not something they can get for free elsewhere.
Consumers are most likely to pay for movies and music (sort of expected) and least likely to pay for content that is user generated, i.e., social media sites, consumer-created movies and blogs.
IN THE MIDDLE are news and information sites, such as newspapers and magazines. The problem once again is that consumers can access a lot of news and information for free. As long as that choice is around, it is going to be very difficult to set up paywalls.
A friend of mind who is a publisher of a small daily in North Carolina told me recently that his great paywall experiment is going like this: more than 4,000 subscribers to the print editing, a little over 350 to the online version. It may seem like a small number, but it’s a start.
In the Nielsen study, consumers had a few requirements for content they would pay for. For instance, 71% said that content would have to be much better before they would consider paying.
That leaves a door open it seems to me, because quality is something we can control. This means stop the cutting of the newsroom: they are your only hope to survive. They are not an unjustifiable expense.
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