Salt Lake Tribune to Charge for Online Content
Salt Lake Tribune publisher Paul Huntsman announced that the newspaper will charge for access to its online content starting Thursday. Political experts predict the move will hurt Democratic candidates and causes in Utah. One long-time Democratic campaign consultant said, “Ben McAdams [Democratic challenger to Republican Congresswoman Mia Love] and medical marijuana just lost.”
On the Republican side, former Salt Lake County Deputy/Acting Mayor and Vice President of Governmental Relations at Intermountain Healthcare, Alan Dayton, said, “The math seems simple. The big media outlet that challenges the Republican Party and the LDS Church just announced it will block most Utahns’ access to its articles. That has to be a big win for those entities.” While the actual impact of the move remains to be seen, research data suggests that the Tribune’s total readership will decline significantly.
A 2016 report by Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism states that only nine (9%) of the English-speaking consumers are willing to pay for online news. Further, the Oxford report states that print newspapers are a source of news for only 25% of consumers, while online media is a news source for 75% of consumers. If those numbers were to hold true for the Tribune (meaning 75% of current Tribune readers consume stories online, but only 9% of those online readers will pay the subscription fee), the paywall would decrease the Tribune’s total readership by 67.5%. Worse still, that number might not account for the compounded loss of social media readership.
If online media consumers no longer read the Tribune, they would no longer link to Tribune articles on social media. And, even for those who do pay the subscription fee, Utah political consultant Andy Stephenson noted, “With a large segment of the population getting their news from aggregators and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, I find it difficult to imagine someone continuing to post a link to social media, if most of their social media followers are unable to read the article without a paid subscription.” Yet, according to the Oxford University study, more than half of all media consumers use social media as a source of news.
Some Tribune readers appear willing to pay a fee. One commenter to the Tribune’s article, mamiejane, writes, “It's absolutely worth supporting the Trib. Good journalism deserves to be paid for.” For those willing to pay a fee, a question exists whether the amount of the Tribune’s monthly ($7.99) is appropriate.
The New York Times charges $9.99/month for online access. According to a 2016 report of the American Press Institute, 77 of 98 papers use some kind of paid subscription model for access to online content. The majority of those papers use a metered (or porous) model like the Tribune will use (10 free articles/month). The average online subscription price for content behind metered paywalls is $12.87/month (almost $5/month more than the Tribune’s price).
Some Tribune readers, however, state an unwillingness to pay the fee. PetraSkyblue commented on the article, “Well, then, I wish you all farewell. Being seniors on a fixed (and limited) income, this paywall is simply beyond us.“ Another commenter, ddavis539, wrote, “For me content providers like Netflix or Hulu offer much more value for $7.99/month.”
Christine Stenquist, president of Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education (TRUCE), a non-profit organization that advocates for patient access to medical marijuana, said, “Paywalls prove to be problematic for advocates of grassroots movements. Many of our followers are patients and caregivers. They have a limited income. They just don't have the funds or even the desire to use their limited resources on a subscription to an online news publication. Information should be free.”
Good Reads:
The Atlantic: “Prepare for the New Paywall Era”
NewCo Shift: “Why Paywalls Don’t Work”