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paid content. No joke.
Are users any more open to the idea these days?
By Heidi Vogt
The Onion, that Wisconsin newspaper turned native New Yorker, as everyone does after a few months, is considering charging readers for some of its online content.
While The Onion won't start charging for the site's existing weekly content, the publication might begin adding additional content for a fee.
So it's back to the debate that's as old as the internet itself: Will people pay for online content?
Many have tried it, but the sought-after revenue gains can be elusive.
Slate tried a subscription service back in 1998 that didn't last the year.
"We had half a million people milking us for our free stuff, but only 30,000 subscribers," says Cyrus Krohn, publisher of Slate.
"We were jeopardizing our long term growth by limiting ourselves to subscribers."
When Slate returned to a free format, its audience numbers jumped and their advertising revenue quickly followed. Currently Slate claims 4.5 million unique users each month.
"The majority of internet users still don't want to pay for content," says David Strassel, managing editor of the Intermarket Group. And there are just too many sites out there that don't ask people to pay.
"For just about any type of content there are multiple alternatives," says Strassel.
When one site starts charging, users simply switch to another site.
Most sites try to hold onto users by providing a certain amount of free content. Slate provided four or five free articles on its site in 1998.
Salon offers a selection of free content in addition to its current subscription service.
The proposed Onion plan would try to hold on to wallet-cinching users by giving them all the same free content they are now getting but adding additional content that users would have to pay to access.
Will users want the extras enough to pay up?
That's still hard to predict.
"Everyone says people won't pay for news. But CNN has gotten people to pay for streaming video," says Strassel. The challenge for online publications is to find content so specialized that users feel they can't get it anywhere else. Says Strassel: "The greater the need for the information, the more likely people are going to pay for it."
Does this include an aching need for a good dose of ironic comedy?
"It never ceases to amaze me what people find value in," says Strassel.
"Humor is a luxury," says Michael Colton, co-editor of Modern Humorist, another online humor site. Modern Humorist doesn't charge for any of their site content, but its managers have discussed the possibility.
"Now isn't the right time for us to charge. If people aren't willing to pay for news, I don't think they're going to pay for comedy online." But Colton goes on to say that The Onion's already large fan base might be willing to pay for of the publication's dependably amusing content.
"If there was something online that they didn't have in the print edition, I'd definitely pay for it," says Colton.
October 1, 2002© 2002 Media Life
-Heidi Vogt is a New York writer who splits her time between Manhattan, Brooklyn and Covington, Kentucky
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