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Will Readers Pay For Online News?

Would you be willing to pay for something you can now get for free? A lot of people are.

March 23, 2009
As bloggers begin to discuss how they see the news industry evolving as print outlets struggle for survival, many say they are willing to pay for online news content, according to a recent online report about bloggers and social media by J.D. Power and Associates Web Intelligence Division.

The report analyzes blogs and message board postings between December 2008 and February 2009 on the topic of news, paying options and how consumers expect the news industry to evolve. These conversations were most often initiated by bloggers who are related in some way to the news industry, indicating the early nature of such discussions.

Initial findings, released at The McGraw-Hill Companies 2009 Media Summit New York, indicate there is a growing acknowledgement among bloggers that consumers will eventually have to pay for online news content.

Nearly 40 percent of bloggers who discussed the issue said they would, or already do, pay for news content. The most commonly cited reasons include the fact that they find value in professional journalism and that they don't want the quality of news to decline. Subscription service was mentioned most frequently as the preferred payment option.

"Among those bloggers who accept having to pay for news content in the future, many mention preferring a subscription service," said Janet Eden-Harris, vice president of J.D. Power and Associates Web Intelligence Division. "Monthly or yearly subscriptions to content appeal to bloggers more than paying by the article, because in contrast to the iTunes model — in which content is licensed for a long period of time — news articles are more transient and lose value quickly. In addition, bloggers believe that there's no easy way to pay for articles individually. Bloggers also say they would prefer a subscription service because it could include an ability to organize all the news articles read and to tag them for future reference."

The report finds, however, that 17 percent of bloggers say that news information should always be free, and they'd find a way to get news without paying.

Approximately 45 percent of bloggers are still undecided about whether they would or would not pay for news content, although many have suggested different options to keep news outlets going, such as using Kindle-type readers for newspapers and supporting news organizations as a public service.

Bloggers mentioned three articles during the past two months as drivers for this conversation:

• The Wall Street Journal, an opinion piece by L. Gordon Crovitz on Feb. 23 entitled, "Information Wants to Be Expensive — Newspapers need to act like they're worth something";

• A Time magazine article on Feb. 5 by Walter Isaacson entitled, "How to Save Your Newspaper" and

• The New York Times, an article by David Carr on Jan.12 entitled, "Let's Invent an iTunes for News."

"We're catching this conversation at its genesis," said Eden-Harris. "It hasn't quite hit mainstream because the general public isn't confronted with a true pay-for-news-or-lose-it decision. Right now, the conversation is concentrated among bloggers who are interested in media models, media evolution, journalism, democracy and different online payment models. But consumers are beginning to take note and debate the issue among themselves as they wait to see how the situation evolves."

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