Final Blog Post

News is everywhere, everyone needs to stay informed about what is current and happening around them. For the past decade and more, news organizations have been suffering with revenue loss and in result many news organization have been shut down. Although news organizations have been declining, according to an article there have been organizations such as The New York Times which have put up a paywall and earned $169 million in 2014 off of online subscriptions by charging for online news you build a loyal customer base that gets exclusive content and higher quality journalism. News subscriptions also help journalists stay employed and helps organizations from going extinct. Charging for online news is an effective strategy for news organizations to make money and continue to survive.
 Although many people may not be eager to give out their hard earned money for everyday news, the news organizations who have put out pay walls may provide better quality of journalism compared to other news organizations. According to an article , pay walls have been a success at certain organizations such as New York Times and Financial Times where they put a value on the exclusive content they produce and try to replace lost newspaper circulation. This success directly leads into other news organizations taking on the strategy and trying to copy the past success of others. Another example of a successful digital paywall is looked over on a post where it discusses the success of The Globe and Mail where the revenue from the paywall has been about 25% higher than the company’s internal forecasts and potentially adding 80,000 customers after the paywall launched. Another sign of success is seen in a relevant news article, nearly 4 in 10 adults under age 35 are paying for news. This shows that nearly half the population under the age of 35 are open to paying for news as it promotes loyalty to the news organization and provides specific topics that readers can find with their favorite news organizations which may not be available with other organizations. With a good amount of the population willing to pay for quality news content, a recent survey looked at how much people are willing to pay in each country. After looking at the population that is willing to pay, the survey found that 20% of Americans are willing to pay $10 a month which is significant to news organizations. The survey also found that a good amount of the population were willing to pay big amounts of money especially in Australia. Along with more quality news and better customer interaction, Harold Munro the Editor in Chief of the Vancouver Sun says “This new “metered” system will help generate revenue to invest in the insightful, award-winning print and digital journalism expected from the biggest and best news team in Western Canada”.  With having to pay for news content, news organizations have begun to see financial stability, more quality of news being provided and more overall success with outreach to the population.
Although I do believe that charging for news is an effective way for news organizations to survive, there are counter points that could be brought up that would say online paywalls aren't a very good idea. In a blogpost by Matthew Ingram, I found one of his three reasons as to why he doesn't like paywalls to be interesting. He mentions that after a paywall was put up when he was a business columnist, up to 90% of his viewership went down which bothered him more than the increased amount of money he was making because as a writer the thing he was most interested in was reaching as many people as possible with his writing, regardless of whether they pay for it directly or not. Another interesting opinion I found in a journal was that while the average print subscriber generates $1100 a year, the equivalent figure for a digital subscriber is $175 which concluded that paywalls are “not a viable business model”. There are many articles saying that paywalls aren't really making enough money for news organizations even though the numbers may sound pleasing compare to print news in the past.
In conclusion, I find that charging for online news is an effective strategy for news organizations to make money and continue to survive even though there may be perceived flaws in the strategy. By promoting more time to gather and provide quality news that is exclusive to news organizations and having loyal readers that get what they are looking for, give the reader incentive to pay and help news organizations be able to survive at a time of financial instability. Although I do not think paywalls will be a permanent solution to the problem news organizations are facing, it is a viable short term solution that will help news organizations survive.

Sources : 

Williams , A. T., & Pickard, V. (2015, May 21). Newspapers’ ongoing search for subscription revenue: from paywalls to micropayments. Retrieved July 29, 2017, from http://theconversation.com/newspapers-ongoing-search-for-subscription-revenue-from-paywalls-to-micropayments-40726

Felle, T. (2016, February 22). Are paywalls saving journalism? Retrieved July 29, 2017, from http://theconversation.com/are-paywalls-saving-journalism-53585

Dobby, C. (2013, February 22). Globe adds 80,000 paywall subscribers, but unclear how many are new customers. Retrieved July 29, 2107, from http://business.financialpost.com/news/globe-adds-80000-paywall-subscribers-but-unclear-how-many-are-new-customers/wcm/ab51a222-630d-4798-9050-eb13d424a4c5

Paying for news: Why people subscribe and what it says about the future of journalism. (2107, May 2). Retrieved July 29, 2017, from https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/paying-for-news/

Newman, N. (n.d.). Paying for Online News. Retrieved July 29, 2017, from http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2015/paying-for-online-news-2015/

Munro, H. (2012, August 22). A note to our readers: Sun to charge for unlimited access to online content. Retrieved July 29, 2017, from https://www.evernote.com/shard/s7/sh/fa2cd3b8-2e7a-4ad4-ba75-a0c3bffa1551/effd92b6585d6907174d9198ae6c4ffc

Ingram , M. (2012, May 12). My personal take: 3 reasons I don’t like newspaper paywalls. Retrieved July 29, 2017, from https://gigaom.com/2012/05/12/my-personal-take-3-reasons-i-dont-like-newspaper-paywalls/

Franklin, B. (2014). The Future of Journalism. Journal Studies , 15(5), 481-499. Retrieved July 29, 2017, from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2014.930254