Business | Features
Three UK newspapers charge for online edition
Move intended as experiment to see how customers react, press executive says
- By Ben Fenton, Financial Times
- Published: 00:00 December 3, 2009
London: A small revolution in online journalism began this week as three local UK newspapers started charging readers for access to their internet editions.
The Johnston Press-owned Whitby Gazette, the Northumberland Gazette and the Southern Reporter based across the border in Selkirk, join the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal as papers requiring customers to pay for the special interest news they supply.
Readers of the three local papers will be able to see only the first few paragraphs of a story before being asked to pay £5 (Dh30) for three months' access to the whole online newspaper.
It is the latest development as newspapers face an increasingly pressing need to find alternative revenue, as readers desert newsprint for the internet.
John Fry, chief executive of Johnston Press, which owns more than 300 other titles, said the move was intended as a low-key experiment and was part of an examination of how customers would respond to the company moving away from free online content.
"It's an opportunity to grow revenues," Fry said. "Our business plan doesn't require us to do anything in this area, but it's obviously an area of potential increase in revenues. I suspect the model will evolve and we will come to see what is the best route."
Fry said an application for the iPhone, allowing customers to get access to their local newspaper, was under consideration.
He said an increasing amount of material used on the websites would be "user-generated content", something that printed versions had been relying on for generations.
Johnston Press and the regional arms of Trinity Mirror and Daily Mail & General Trust have all seen revenue fall by between 22 and 28 per cent in their most recent results, with falls of between 53 and 65 per cent in operating profits.
But all have reported a stabilisation in advertising revenue in the past quarter.
Experts agreed that the Johnston Press experiment was likely to be followed.
Roger Parry, former chairman of Johnston, said: "It's an entirely logical development given the way the web has developed and the advertising market has developed. The early experiment with the net was posited on getting eyeballs and then somehow they would produce money. Clearly that hasn't happened for the smaller sites."
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