“I can’t say anything bad about the paywall. I think it’s been the best thing, or one of the best things, we’ve ever done,” says John Winn Miller, publisher at The Concord Monitor. He’s one of three local news publishers/editors that Ellie Behling of emediavitals profiled in this story about local news sites where pageviews actually increased after paywalls were erected. Interestingly, Behling notes that three success stories she profiles all use metered paywalls (similar to The New York Times Model).Some lessons learned from local news publishers:

• Tightening the paywall: The Augusta Chronicle started with a paywall that allowed 25 free articles and has slowly tightened it to 10 articles per month.
• Some advertisers are specifically interested in the paid audience: “”We have seen some interest in advertisers willing to pay specifically to have their ads served to the paying audience,” says Chronicle editor Alan English.
• Remain focused on quality local news content: Jason Collingwood, web editor for The Tulsa World, now has his staff updating the site 80 to 90 times a day with hyper local news.
• Requiring print subscribers to opt out of digital can produce great results: The Concord Monitor increased its print rates to account for the new digital access and gave their print subscribers the option of opting out of digital. Only 10% opted out, resulting in a “tremendous boost to revenue.”