Pay-as-you-go news platform PressPatron launches in Australia, InDaily gets on board
New Zealand-based funding platform for journalism, PressPatron, is launching in Australia, hoping to move publishers away from paywalls.
The platform, which has locked in Adelaide-based InDaily as one of its first clients, can be embedded in websites, allowing publishers to provide consumers with opportunities for one-off payments, or ongoing donations to “quality journalism”.
PressPatron was launched in New Zealand in February, and is now expanding to Australia
Founder and CEO Alex Clark said research during his Masters degree showed crowdfunding was a strong business model for journalism.
“Crowdfunding came out as a really strong strategy and there are actually more people within our survey were saying they were willing to make a voluntary donation, on a monthly basis to their favourite site, rather than pay for a site that was locked up behind paywall restrictions,” Clark said.
“What publishers love about it is it’s very low risk for them, they can keep all their existing strategies such as advertising, and can maintain a really strong relationship with their readers, so they’re not having to put up barriers and restrictions, they can just leave the doors open.”
Clark: Funding around “goodwill” an effective business model
While he will work out of New Zealand during the early stages of launch with the help of development team, Touchtech, Clark will look to work with independent and mainstream publishers locally. He expects the team will grow as needed.
Clark said basing funding around “goodwill” is more effective than paywalls, arguing the paywall model felt like an “antagonistic relationship” rather than a “mutually beneficial relationship” between publisher and reader.
Speaking about the public attitude towards journalism: “I think its because journalism is a very core part of society, having a well-functioning democracy, and locking up that content goes against that (ethos).
“Even if people have the money to pay for journalism it often gets their backs up.
“We had a bit of open-ended feedback in the initial market research we did, and over and over again people said they were prepared to pay but they don’t want to lock up this from other people, the point of them making a payment is that it can have a bigger impact.”
Clark said while he was currently in discussions with Australian publishers, InDaily has been locked in for launch.
The PressPatron platform will run through the Adelaide independent’s website from August 28.
InDaily is one of the first publications to partner with PressPatron
“We are open to working with independent publishers all the way to mainstream and that is our focus, we’re about supporting all types of journalism and mainstream outlets have quite strong, large teams and so they’re better resourced than small outlets,” he said.
“But where smaller outlets really have their strength are catering to particular niches or they might have innovative new approaches to journalism.”
The company, which began in February this year in New Zealand, already has 60% of users signing up to monthly recurring contributions.
He said the average one-off donation was currently $47, with 37% giving $50 or more, and 13% giving more than $100 as a one-off payment.
Other results found 6% of people were contributing to multiple publishers, up to three or four at once.
He expects more sites will eventually take down their paywalls.
“Maybe there are some publications where the dynamic does favour a more restrictive model. Particularly for financial journalism, where it has a direct economic benefit when you purchase it, and that is more transactional in terms of the approach to that journalism,” he noted.
“But I think for the journalism for the community, for the public, I think this voluntary model is a lot stronger.”
