News UK, which is set to move offices as reported by Clickmate in Fortress Wapping Breached, is claiming that there now exists a greater acceptance of paying for digital access.
The Times and The Sunday Times website was one of the first pay walls to be established in the UK and after an initial lukewarm reaction from consumers, the strategy appears to be gaining ground. Another News UK title The Sun will also dip behind a pay wall in the coming months.
A number of other top UK titles are also planning to charge for digital access and the pioneering approach led by News UK is being studied nervously by media CEOs across the land.
Newspapers need to move their reliance from the press advertising market which may be less than 5% down on the year, but still represents a huge drop in revenues. Traditionally journalism has been the framework on which adverts are hung. Now, journalistic content is effectively creating the revenues, with digital advertising fees adding to the pile. Newspapers have for a long time argued that user traffic and online ads cannot alone pay for a large commitment to quality journalism. Thus, users of media websites are being tapped to provide the necessary revenues to support newspaper journalists.
Paid-for subscribers are now the holy grail for newspaper proprietors. Bosses at The Times say that it now enjoys 140,000 paying digital subscribers, which is a rise of 13,000 from January, 2013. What’s more, figures suggest that the average time spent by each subscriber on the digital edition equates to 40 minutes, roughly the same time a reader will spend with a print version.
The trend for digital access payments is on the increase, but, as some experts point out, the free model is not yet being consigned to the dustbin.