Online Aussies: ‘We won’t pay for news’
A large majority of Australians say they would not pay for online news, a survey suggests.
According to a poll of more than 18,000 Australians released today by Pure Profile, only 5% said they would be willing to pay for “high quality articles”. A further 7% said they would be willing to pay if there was no advertising. 10% said they would not pay because the quality of online news was unimportant to them, while the vast majority – 78% – said they would simply refuse to pay for online news.
The figures echo similar ones in a Harris poll carried out in the UK released earlier this week which also suggested than only about 5% of online users would be willing to pay for news content.
The findings are potentially significant because major online media owners, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp have signalled their intentions to attempt to start charging for content.
However, Ed Smith, chief commercial officer of News Digital Media in Australia, has argued that surveys of this kind depend on how questions are asked. Smith tells today’s SMH:
“If you ask them yes or no, everyone says no. But if you do more in-depth research about what they consume, where and why and how they would be prepared to pay for it, you see very different results in line with our strategy.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Agree (to an extent) with Ed Smith. You ask anyone if they’re willing to pay for something they currently get for free, the vast majority will say no.
Then again, that might be because the vast majority of people are unwilling to pay for something they currently get for free.
Do we really need research to tell us this?
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My question is, what percentage of the survey sample actually pay for ANY news? IE do they subscribe to a newspaper / Business publication / sports channels on TV?
What percentage of regular paying consumers of news said yes and how many said no?
What are their views on bundles? Will they pay for a paper and a bit extra for online? Or vice versa?
Anyone?
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I meant sports new / sky news / international news through cable tv…
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Am I paying for news now? no.
Will that change in future? no.
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It will be interesting to see what happens to ABC News Online’s market share if punters have to pay to use news.com.au. You can’t really argue that the ABC lacks quality.
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Am also interested in what type of payment model they are actually considering implementing – that will be a big factor in my consideration my being willing to pay or not – subscription vs micro-payments vs other?
I have no problem paying for quality journalism.
In fact I would prefer to pay with money I can ‘see’ as opposed to being paid for by my eyeballs to advertisers with online display advertising.
Hard to justify not paying to read a good article by a good writer (qualified journalist or otherwise) for less than the cost of an SMS text message?
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Good point Matt…
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I prefer the model of:
Free = loaded with advertising
Paid = NO ADVERTISING
But I will NOT pay for it and then have to deal with the barrage of online advertising too.
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In Debating 101 we learn to dismiss, challenge and ridicule the source of information which conflicts with our point of view. I wonder when News Digital will accept unless there is added value, people will not pay for what they can get for free. Question the research all you want, but I’d have a plan B in place.
And stop using The Wall St Journal as proof positive that people will pay for content. Most News Limited publications have a populist editorial approach, so the comparison is questionable.
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A majority of news stories are full of doom and gloom, death, murders, kidnappings, disasters, economic implosions and so on. Who in their right mind wants to pay for that?
I get most of my news from Twitter and the network of blogs I read, which span most corners of the globe.
I’m not paying now and won’t be in the future. The Age etc are websites I visit least.
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Hello,
Steve Browning, head of Corp Affairs for NDM here.
If you’d like more insight into News’ thinking, you can read Richard Freudenstein’s speech to PANPA here
http://www.newsdigitalmedia.co.....Speech.pdf
Cheers
Steve
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News.com want to make money selling news, that’s fair, but I think they’ve missed the boat. They’re not in a tiny two newspaper market now – they’re in a world market and the competition actually means they have no market power. So I think they should try it and see. But I’ll put my money on it being a pretty short lived experiment.
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Well, as a freelance journalist who writes for many of these news sites, I’d certainly like ANYBODY to pay me for my work.
You write for a mainstream newspaper, they then “own” your stuff, can run it as they like on any of their websites, profit from the advertising, but the author gets nothing.
Soon as it goes online it becomes “public domain” and anyone can knick it.
Hardly seems fair, really!
Having said that – for want of a foot in either camp – I wouldn’t pay for websites either.
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I’m buying into this debate late so apologies if this has already been pointed out; but I just can’t see the average Herald Sun reader paying for online news. The Wall Street Journal comparison and model just doesn’t stack up.
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Define “high quality articles”
If you mean long-form expert journalism, this is precisely the editorial material which does not translate well from print to online.
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I don’t understand … we already pay for news on fairfax, news, ninemsn etc. It’s called ads. The current debate is akin to Channel 7 saying they’ll start charging us to watch.
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News have every right to ask for payment, as is evidenced by Brians comments. However it wont work, people will not pay and unless News discovers a new way to monetise the net they will eventually become extinct.
Unfortunately news are looking at this, from “newspaper eyes”, effectively they are just doing the same thing theyve always done..which is sell a subscription/home delivery… but times have changed…unless a new vision appears its all over. Beter sell my shares now at a 30% loss rather than 100% loss in 5 years.
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Steve, thanks for entering the debate here and linking to the speech. I have to say it was the most considered speech I’ve seen on the topic from News Limited and the first not to have me guffawing at the arrogance and ignorance on display.
Previously, the speeches by Brendan Hopkins and John Hartigan displayed a distinct misunderstanding of how the web works and were advocating a subscription model – not based on providing something unique, of true value and significantly different to the free alternatives, as Freudenstein says – but because the search engines were “breaking into their homes and stealing their content” or because blog have “limited intellectual value as to be barely discernible from massive ignorance”.
They clearly displayed that they didn’t understand how the internet economy and the sharing of information works and were building a case that the existing news sites were worthy of charging for because it just wasn’t cricket any other way.
Freudenstein seems to have grasped that free news isn’t a crime, it is the default setting on the web; and that to get off the default setting, you need to provide something of greater value and quality to motivate the consumer.
What I wonder is whether NDM realises how big the challenge is to differentiate News Media’s online product and proposition from the free alternatives.
Matt Granfield raises a great point – the ABC is the biggest threat to a paid news model. If commercial news media starts petitioning for a curb to the public broadcaster’s ability to provide free, quality news – as James packer did in his tirade against the BBC in Glasgow last month – then the backlash will be immense. Freudenstein used the example of Sky TV providing a different and better service to BBC television to justify the fees, NDM has a similar and potentially greater challenge.
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PS:
http://www.jonathancrossfield......orant.html
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But aren’t you paying for the ABC online through your taxes? Isn’t it a rose by any other name?
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Kimota,
I can’t speak for Brendan Hopkins, but your criticism of John Hartigan couldn’t be more wrong.
You say that Hartigan didn’t talk about “providing something unique, of true value and significantly different to the free alternatives”.
In the first minute of John’s speech to the National Press Club, he said
“I believe people will pay for content if it is:
– Original…
– Exclusive…
– Has the authority
– and is relevant to our audiences”
In regards to your pondering whether News ‘realises how big the challenge is’, I refer you to the summation of Richard’s speech –
“But make no mistake, News fully recognises the scale of the challenge.
We do not expect people to pay for something that isn’t worth it.
That applies to everything we do – not just online.
But we have the belief in our product and the weight of our history and experience behind us.”
Cheers
Steve
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Hi Steve,
On rereading his speech, I agree that John Hartigan did indeed call for an improvement in journalistic practice in order to justify charging. But he also attacked the search engines, news aggregators and blogosphere without which any news service – paid, innovative or otherwise – is doomed to fail.
To quote him…
“The most profitable sites, in fact the only ones making serious money are the sites that aggregate news, like Google and Yahoo.
They pay nothing for content produced by newspaper journalists but make money by supplying it in easily searchable forms online.
The major media outlets have encouraged them to take a free ride on our content.”
https://mumbrella.com.au/hartigan-journalism-not-the-limited-intellectual-value-of-blogs-is-the-future-of-the-web-7306
He then goes on to slam search engines, news aggregators and blogs – despite the fact that without them, traffic to news sites would plummet. They’re not stealing content, they’re giving you extra eyeballs, extra readers and helping people find your content – for free. They’re not stealing any more than the Yellow Pages is stealing business from you by making money off helping people find your phone number. Search engines aren’t plagiarists, but the online version of the newsstand. Are newsagents to be criticised for making a profit on distributing your papers?
If Hartigan is actually advocating News Media develop something new and far greater than their current offering in order to live up to that claim, as Richard Freudenstein did, then I withdraw that part of my criticism of him. But this new proposition needs to be far more persuasive, though, than merely better journalism. Decent journalism is the cost of admission to be taken seriously on the web – and the cost of admission is free.
The Wall Street Journal example works only because it is specialist information with particular relevance to a niche audience that traditionally has no problem spending money to stay ahead. How other mainstream news sites achieve that same level of relevance, innovation and originality is a major challenge. even though NDM say that they know it is a major challenge, I’m not convinced they know how big the challenge is yet if they continue to attack the infrastructure they will need to incorporate into any successful online strategy – search engines, news aggregators and blog buzz.
Cheers as well (it’s Friday beer time after all)
Jonathan
But to think that search engines, news aggregators and blogs won’t be playing a role in any successful new venture by directing readers to that news content is incredibly naive.
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Eeek, comment fail, not deleting a paragraph after I signed off.
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For quite a long time I’ve thought that there ought to be a way to tip people in “micropayments”.
Anyone who uses Secondlife would have a basic understanding of what I mean.
The consumer would go to a banking site and pay something like $20au…
This would translate into, for example, a thousand micro dollars.
Then, if you go to a website or blog and like a persons work, then you pay them
whatever you feel is a nice amount… it could be ten to fifty points.
This system would also work for musos who’s music you listen to online and why not tip people for their tweets too, if that makes you happy?
Micro payments might not seem like much, but anyone who’s seen Brewsters Millions might understand the possibilities.
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Micropayments?
Why not an all out Electronic Trading Scheme where I can swap two News Ltd bikini galleries for one month of thepunch ?
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1] No-one will pay for free press. Not now, not ever.
2] When I pay my taxes the government promises to provide ABC news services for free. It’s always been like that and it always will be.
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Tim, it’s time we put this ‘pay for news’ question to the ultimate test?
From 1st November Mumbrella introduces a subscription fee.
Pay the fee you get access. Don’t pay the fee, no more Mumbrella.
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Hi Freepress,
Thanks for the suggestion. If anyone, anywhere, is going to succeed, they’ll need the right technical platform and an enormous marketing budget. If you’d like to help me out with those, I’ll be delighted to give your experiment a go.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I think my choice to pay for online news will be largely influenced by the quality of content and the presentation; good quality news presented in a neat and uncluttered format equals my subscription.
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