Stella Pop: Surprise, Surprise - People Won’t Pay for Online Content
Surprise, Surprise - People Won’t Pay for Online Content
Stella Pop: YoStella.com Online Content
I love my online newspaper, whatever format. I cannot imagine having a tree delivered to my front door seven days a week anymore. But I do know, that there are people who want the touch and feel of the traditional newspaper. This appeared at ReadWriteWeb dot com in an article titled, “80% of US Consumers Won’t Pay For Online Content.” Written by Frederic Lardinois / November 16, 2009.
According to a new Forrester survey, almost 80% of Internet users in the US and Canada would not pay for access to newspaper and magazine websites. Those users who would consider paying for content are mostly interested in subscriptions. Only a very small number of consumers is interested in making micropayments (3%). The study also asked which distribution channel consumers would prefer if their favorite print publications ceased to exist. 37% preferred the web, 14% mobile phones and 11% would prefer to read the content on their laptops or netbooks. 10% would prefer PDFs delivered by email and 3% would read the content on their e-readers.
44% of all respondents said that they wouldn’t be interested in getting their print content through any of these delivery mechanisms.
Who Is Willing to Pay?
Forrester’s Sarah Rotman Epps took a closer look at the demographic profile of those users who said that they would be willing to pay. Gender and marital status had no influence on a consumer’s willingness to pay. Those who are willing to pay for magazine content are slightly younger that those who won’t (43 years vs. 47). For newspaper content, however, there was no difference. Income, too, only makes a small difference. Those with a higher income are slightly more likely to pay for newspaper content than for magazines.
The surprising results from this research is that no demographic group is willing to pay for online content. I would have bet my favorite jeans that 45-65 year old males would have paid for the Wall Street Journal or their city paper but the research shows that no demographic group sees little or no value in online newspaper content, this is scary if you are employed by one of these dinosaurs.
Stella says, newspapers and magazines have a long road in front of them and need to re-invent themselves in order to change existing viewpoints regarding online value.
