Our-Hometown, Inc Designing, building and deploying Online Business Models for the newspaper industry since 1997 Contact: Carl Leonardi (315) /04/2010
Paywall Business Model Myth vs. Fact A look at implementation Analysis of outcome Pricing Model Conclusions
Why Implement A Paywall Create an immediate stream of new revenue. Increase number of paid subscribers. Return On Investment. Protect your content, it has value. Create new revenue generating opportunities.
Case Study: The Derrick, Oil City, PA - Overview TheDerrick.com includes News- Herald edition Total print circulation 28,000 Market 75 miles north of Pittsburgh Minimal market area competition Before paywall they cut/paste about 50% of content to their HTML website Little effort put into web ad sales
TheDerrick.com - Timeline September 2009 – The Derrick chooses Our-Hometown Business Model, new website designed and up within 21 days. October 2009 – Site goes live with no paywall, but readers could subscribe. November 2009 – Our-Hometown implements paywall model, over $100,000 in paywall revenue since.
Our-Hometown: The Process The Derrick sends a pdf of the paper to Our-Hometown Daily. Our-Hometown posts 100% of the news online in html format. Breaking news and updates are added by Derrick staff in between issues. Our-Hometown is responsible for hosting, maintaining, and upgrading the website.
Paywall Subscription Costs 3 Months 6 Months 1 Year 1 Year online upgrade $29.00 $39.00 $69.00 $12.00
TheDerrick.com order analysis
Order Flow
Pricing Model for online-only subscriptions at dailies The Data
Study of demand for online- only subscriptions at dailies
Myth: You’ll never get enough subscribers to be meaningful
Myth: Print subscribers will go online-only If I charge the $7.80/month you recommend, that is less than the price of the print edition. I’ll cannibalize print and lose insert revenue and maybe more.
Myth: Print subscribers will go online-only Oil City Derrick (28,000 circ daily) 1,185 online-only Only 5 cancelled the print edition Only 1 was in their delivery area $69/year - ½ the price of the print 45% of online-only subscribers live inside their delivery area
Conclusions At $7.80 per month for online-only access, dailies will add about 3.5% to total subscriber base with a paywall Only minimal loss of print subscribers to online-only. Initially expect a drop in website traffic This is with HTML websites only; not PDF or Replica editions.