Paid Online Subscriptions Pay Off for Newspapers and Their Investors

While the online subscription industry is a $15 billion-a-year business across a variety of niches, the news industry has had the most difficulty capitalizing

While the online subscription industry is a $15 billion-a-year business across a variety of niches, the news industry has had the most difficulty capitalizing on paid content. But since the New York Times launched a metered paywall in 2010, more and more newspapers have been willing to experiment with paywalls and online subscriptions.And now it seems that those experiments have paid off.The Wall Street Journal reported that newspaper stocks are up 50% to 80% in the past year.Once considered risky because they could curtail advertising revenue by limiting page views, paywalls and online subscriptions are now being lauded for their ability to balance out volatile advertising revenues with stable, recurring revenues. And both investors and newspapers seem to like that model — finally.In fact, Gannett’s paywalls had delivered the first rise in circulation revenue for the company’s community papers in years, even though only half the papers have introduced them so far.Of course, that doesn’t mean advertising revenue is going away. But newspaper executives will have to learn how to balance both revenue streams. They’ll also have to decide if and how to implement advertising behind a paywall.Serendipitously, our sister site Subscription Site Insider will have Consultant Ryan Dohrn speaking about just this topic — Ad Sales for Paywall Sites — during its next monthly Webinar. Sign up now to attend live or receive access to an on-demand recording.

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