The AFR paywall numbers – not as bad as you’d think, but not as impressive as they claim
I must confess, I felt somewhat cynical when Fairfax Media sent out a press release yesterday offering for the first time clues about how the AFR’s long established pay wall is faring.
Cynical because the timing seemed designed to draw attention away from yet another decline in its print circulation.
And also because the number seemed so darned low.
But I am, I confess, beginning to come around slightly.
More to it than meets your eye Tim.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/43864.html
Tim,
Your figures here don’t take into account advertising revenue which is kind of important. Yes, the AFR has published editions with no ads, but their would be a reasonable advertising (print) stream.
The really interesting opportunity that the AFR’s arrogance/incompetence has created is a dearth of really good finance websites. Seriously. Australia’s biggest website in the finance category is ninemsn money!
Finance advertisers are higher yielding online advertiser, and an open, engaged AFR.com would definitely bring in more than $6M a year in advertising. A lot more.
But this is all rooted in the politics of working at Fairfax. When I worked there there were huge internal turf wars over who was responsible for what with the AFR website. It was all politics. And to be fair to Michael, he won that battle, with (as I recall) the AFR one of the only websites outside of the seperatley run F2 business.
Now. Ten years on, the more things say the same.
And I will also humbly suggest to you Tim, that if you asked Fairfax to release their number of full freight paying AFR.com subscribers over the last 10 years you will see that it has pretty much always been about 5,000. A project called AFR desktop a few years ago – where they tried to turn the AFR website into a bloomberg type product (I kid you not) would have moved the needle a little bit on those figures.
Otherwise it’s steady as she goes with around 5,000 online subscribers for 10 years and sagging circulation with plummeting print ad sales.
“print circulation is arill”
Shouldn’t that say ‘still’, Tim?
Would be interesting to know how frequently the 6000 or so users are using the AFR website. Revenues are great but longer term it really depends on usage.
Well spotted Spelling Corrector. Fair to say that my already poor use of spellcheck declines even more after midnight. It’s a Gremlins thing…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
not an alcohol thing?
Tim, I have it on good authority that News Limited is also about to introduce a pay wall for The Australian online edition. Should be an interesting one to watch…
Its overpriced for what you get
Halve the cost and might see some upside.
its only companies with fat wallets paying these subs.
>@snoop “Its overpriced for what you get”
Certainly compared to FT.com it is. FT has subscriptions a fraction of the price of the AFR.
AFR has created a true corporate only website. 6,711 subscribers is hardly a base Fairfax can be proud of after ten years. As a small business, we will not renew our print subscription. We now gain most of our business news from sources like Crikey, Business Spectator, the Australian and even SMH Business section, which has really improved. Plus WSJ, FT and Economist. You can subscribe to most of these with so much better value. As for the AFR technology, it is simply awful. I wonder why they bother continuing as the 6,711 inevitably shrinks to 3,000 and at that stage all they have is the limited financial district as their customers. Why don’t these guys listen? The signals hav been there for years. They will go the same way as the SMH iPad app. Down.
Of that 6, 711 subscriptions, I’m guessing roughly 6, 710 are paid for by the subscriber’s employer in the finance business. I’m no expert at all, but wouldn’t a free site, open to search engines, linkable and covered in personalised advertising make infinitely more money?