Key insights into newspaper subscription models in the US

themediabriefing reporting: Metered models are, by some margin, the most popular digital subscription system used by American news publishers. “Of the 98 newspapers we looked at, 62 papers used meters,” Williams observed, “which is nearly three times as many as those [21 papers] not requiring a digital subscription.”In contrast, just three titles – The Wall Street Journal, Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Newsday -  used a hard paywall, where a subscription is needed to access most content on the website. The other 12 papers that Williams analysed harness a freemium offering, which means that most of the content is available for free, with only “premium” material requiring payment.
https://www.themediabriefing.com/article/key-insights-into-newspaper-subscription-models-in-the-us

Rising Paywalls Are Already Paying Off for Publishers

Mashable reporting:
Not long ago, Bloomberg Businessweek declared 2014 the “Year of the Paywall” for the news industry. Sure enough, everywhere you look in publishing these days, you see news organizations ranging from Politico (and its Capital New York offshoot) to the new tech-oriented website the Information experimenting with online-subscription models. “I would not start a media company today based on advertising alone,” Politico Chief Executive Officer Jim VandeHei told Businessweek recently. “I think it would be crazy.”
This week, the Online Publishers Association, an industry trade organization, released a study that highlights the various ways newspapers and magazines are using paywalls to shape and expand their businesses. The group conducted interviews with executives at Condé Nast, Gannett Community Newspapers, Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, Time, and The Wall Street Journal. The study is worth a read. Here are three, quick take-aways:

1. Online Subscriptions Don’t Cannibalize Print Subscriptions. For years, publishers worried that offering digital subscription models would inadvertently peel away diehard customers from their print products. As it turns out, pay-per-view digital products tend to attract an entirely different set of subscribers.

SEE ALSO: How to Build a Paywall

2. Digital Data Can Cut Down on Subscriber Churn. Publishers are using the wealth of data about their customers online to calculate their lifetime value as a subscriber, to predict outcomes of trial subscriptions, and to shape strategies to hold onto them longer.

3. Charging for Content Often Makes a Publisher’s Ad Space More Valuable. Some publishers are finding they can charge higher rates for ads appearing in subscription environments. “We have grown advertising business every single year since we’ve introduced subscription,” said Rob Grimshaw, managing director of the Financial Times’ FT.com website. “Because of the deep relationship we have with the audience and the data we have on our subscribers, we can guarantee that advertisers reach very specific scarce audiences.”
http://mashable.com/2013/12/14/paywall-benefits/?utm_cid=mash-prod-email-topstories&utm_emailalert=daily&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily 

Strategy: how Axel Springer calculated and then bought its way to European digital dominance

wh'teboard reporting:
I wonder if the European digital economy will follow ‘Lineker’s Law’: 22 startups try to become the winner who takes all, and in the end the Germans win. It looks a bit like it, when you look at Axel Springers rise to digital dominance in the last half decade. From virtually zero – “a mere internet midget” according to the Financial Times Deutschland, Axel Springer strategized, calculated and shopped itself to the very top of the European digital ranking for publishing houses.
2012 was the first year that Axel Springer derived more revenue from its digital properties than from its national newspapers – and those print publications are not the least (Springer’s tabloid Bild, still printed on 3 million copies, can move public opinion all by itself). In Q1 of 2013, Springer’s Digital Media division again reaffirmed its position as the group’s strongest operating segment by increasing its revenues a whopping 20.9 percent compared to the first quarter of 2012.
So naturally, after my talk with Schibsted, I also wanted to hear about how Axel Springer is reshaping itself into a digital company. Schibsted decided very early on to put a lot of firepower behind classifieds, adopting the motto “the internet is made for classifieds, and classifieds are made for the internet”.
Schibsted innovates radically, following Clay Christensen’s advice on how to disrupt yourself almost to the letter. Spin out, spin in, allow spun out brands to compete at lower prices with its own parent brands, the works.
http://www.whiteboardmag.com/strategy-how-axel-springer-calculated-and-then-bought-its-way-to-european-digital-dominance/?utm_source=API%27s+Need+to+Know+newsletter&utm_campaign=f4f0149392-Need_to_Know_December_6_201312_6_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e3bf78af04-f4f0149392-31701933