Third time’s a charm. At least that’s what Dallas Morning News is hoping for as it plans to take a third run at a paywall in 2016, says NetNewsCheck. In an exclusive interview with NetNewsCheck’s Michael Depp, Dallas Morning News publisher and CEO Jim Moroney III said the paper failed at its first two attempts of successful utilization of a digital paywall, but it will try again next year.”We tried twice to do paid subscribers online and we haven’t been successful. That’s our fault in execution, not because it’s not a good source of revenue,” Moroney told Depp.

The Dallas Morning News’ first attempt at a hard paywall started January 2011, forcing readers to subscribe for any access to the publication’s content. It brought down that paywall in October 2013, according to NiemanLab, making articles free to all readers.Instead of the paywall, readers had the option to pay for a premium experience with improved design and navigation and limited advertising, along with personalization and loyalty programs that were supposed to come later. They never did. The premium experience was free to print and digital subscribers, but the premium digital experience could be purchased for $2.99 a week. The newspaper maintained a free site for other readers.In July 2014, The Dallas Morning News announced it would shut down its paid website, as the result of “a nine-month experiment that didn’t work.” It would leave the free version of its site – DallasNews.com – intact. Jason Dyer, chief marketing officer for The News, said the purpose of the pay site was to see if people were willing to pay for a more visual experience and to attract a younger audience. Dyer said they learned a lot from the test and would be shifting resources to its mobile app.In his interview with Depp, Moroney said that growing digital advertising and digital-only subscriptions are not enough to offset declines related to print revenue. Instead, the publisher is focusing on diversifying The News’ revenue base.

“We (the industry) have focused primarily on two things to almost the exclusion of any others when it comes to growing revenues: digital advertising and digital-only subscriptions. I don’t believe you’re going to outrun the pace of decline of cumulative print-related revenues by only trying to grow [those]. As an industry if that’s where we’re putting all of our effort, we’re going to keep coming up short,” Moroney told Depp.Moroney also told Depp they are seeing organic growth from new products and extensions of existing products. They’ve also acquired three marketing companies, Distribion, Vertical Nerve and Marketing FX to help them grow at a faster rate. Parent company A.H. Belo, of which Moroney is chairman, president and CEO, is continuing to look for companies to acquire that can help it offer a wider range of marketing solutions to clients. In addition, Dallas Morning News has joined Apple News and is exploring Facebook’s Instant Articles.Insider Take:First, a big thank you to Michael Depp and NetNewsCheck for letting us peek into the Dallas Morning News’ plans for a third paywall. Second, we appreciate that Moroney was transparent enough to explain his insights into why past paywalls have failed and the publication’s plans for the future. Other subscription companies can learn from their mistakes, and hopefully, their successes too.We tend to agree with Moroney’s assessment that there has been a big focus in the publishing industry on growing digital-only subscriptions and digital advertising as their solution and savior. Those are important components to overcoming revenue lost from declining print subscriptions and advertising. However, focusing only on those aspects can be costly if digital growth is slow.Subscription companies and publishers who diversify their revenue sources and who are creative and innovative are more likely to be successful. The New York Times is a great example of this. With a metered paywall, The Times hit one million digital subscribers this year, and it did so with a multi-faceted strategy that includes quality content, technological advances, partnerships, special promotions and more.We hope the Dallas Morning News will find that the third time is, indeed, a charm, and we look forward to learning from their success.~ Dana E. Neuts, Subscription Insider