People have said they would be willing to pay small amounts for online content (we're talking 2p to 20p), which is very encouraging. And good news for Rupert Murdoch as Jeremy Clarkson tops the list of online columnists. Having read this research Murdoch is no doubt on the blower to Google's Eric Schimdt (now that he has had his chat with Gordon Brown) spreading the word that people would be willing to pay for his top columnist Jeremy Clarkson.Interestingly, while other research has suggested subscriptions are the favoured option Continental Research found that micropayments came out on top (although clearly 500 polled is not a massive sample) with 21% saying they would pay this kind of charge as opposed to only 5% saying they would be prepared to pay a monthly or yearly subscription. This could possibly be bad news for Emap with its £150 subscription charge, but i have a feeling that the difference here is that between the B2B market and the consumer. B2B is a traditional subs market with people used to paying that way (not to say that it wouldn't benefit with different payment options). The good news doesn’t stop with Clarkson for Murdoch. Other News Corporation columnists feature heavily in the top ten, according to Continental: Giles Coren, gossip writer Gordon Smart (pay for gossip – that's a stretch) and Jane Moore also feature. I see a stack of coins behind up at Murdoch towers.One point though: you have to ask where Continental found these people, I mean seriously this is a bag of mostly right wingers with a few honourable exceptions. 1. Jeremy Clarkson2. Charlie Brooker*3. Richard Littlejohn4. Giles Coren*5. Simon Heffer6. Gordon Smart7. Lorraine Kelly8. Peter Hitchins9. Jane Moore10. Melanie Phillips.What the list does help articulate though is an idea of what some form of paid content might look like. The pulling power of these big hitters could be the driving force behind a paid content package….if the amount was small enough.Of the above I could imagine paying for only of the above, but I could easily imagine paying small sums for similar types of content in a iTunes kind of way. That kind of "content shopping" can be quite addictive (certainly in terms of music and video) and would I'm sure work for words as well.What Continental found (and clearly this is not a surprise) is that if you raise the entry barrier higher than 2p the numbers swiftly fell away. While 35% said they definitely or probably pay 2p per article that dropped to 22% who were prepared to pay 5p; 13% and 7% prepared at 10p and 20p.Clearly, 2p is too little (plus think of all the small plastic bank bags you would need for that stuff), but 20p is far more attractive and not unreasonable. At that point you still have 7% willing to pay and you do not need large numbers to pay to make paid content work. What is encouraging here is that the figures chime with the research done by the blog paidContent:UK back in September. It found that 5% of people who read a news site at least once a month would pay.Putting top columnists and other pieces of content behind a pay wall makes some sense. While Continental's research is about micropayments (possibly complex to implement) the model of restricting access to certain articles would work as easily for either a club or some other subscription package.
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Micropayments have had it tough over the years - we've all been here before and they didn't quite take off: www.revolutionmagazine.com/.../Securicor-plans-dissolve-eSolutions
But will charging / billing 'at source' be any more palatable for users?
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There are problems with micropayments in that they could be expensive to implement, but i think iTunes surprised a lot people - how quickly we took to them. How the App store followed this through.
For micropayments to work for newspapers/magazines II'm guessing a universal system would be needed across a whole group of titles. A simple single content payment wallet.
I think Gordon hit the nail on the head with consumer and b2b being two different markets. The itunes model works with consumers who are picking their favourite "stars" from a long list. Business people know what information they value and what market they are in, so they are more likely to favour "all you can eat" subscriptions. All online content publishers, however, need to have a fair degree of free content to pull in new prospective customers. See my recent blog post on "content is marketing" at www.penmaen-media.co.uk/.../why-content-is-marketing or join in the debate on paid content on the specialist media network on linked in at www.linkedin.com/groups
Micro-payments in an iTunes-style package is a great idea. If newspaper publishers owners could bury their differences and embrace a cross-industry initiative like this, I could see it gaining traction with people. I think there's more appetite for this than some think - i would pay to read the times and sun online everyday. i'd also pay to read columns by henry winter, martin samuel and others if the payments were small and hassle free.
What's more, you can ascribe a value to Jeremy Clarkson, Charlie Brooker and Richard Littlejohn easily enough, since they are able to resell their columns in book form -and in tens of thousands, too. However, 99% of compilations by other hacks wind up in The Works or under a bypass in Shanghai, so it's not all cut and dried.
@Darren Universal and hassle free is the key - not sure about the Sun. Too much tabloid content gossip and TV is available elsewhere. What you you pay for in the Sun particularly?
@208645 you're right it is the bypass for most of those books. You need star power (a TV show helps).
I think an interesting point is that this is 3rd separate piece of research showing that the younger demogs (digital natives) are more open to paying for news content than the older demogs who should be more accustomed to paying for newspaper etc. something i've blogged about here:
spongeist.wordpress.com/.../why-are-your-digital-natives-happier-to-pay-for-news
@JonathonOake In theory that does make sense - this is the group who have adopted iTunes/download apps/pay to download online gaming and are used to spending online when it comes ocontent, but they are also the group who do not in large numbers pay for words. They don't buy newspapers, tend to read more online (for free), so the question is will a group unused to paying to read journalism actually pay up? I think some will and as all the research seems to suggest you only need a small group to do so to make it work.
@ Gordon, people argue it's content can be found elsewhere but no one covers it in the same way. e.g. today's story about Lampard - a player who never gets injured - picking up a thigh injury. The story is everywhere but only the sun has the interesting angle about the England players flying for 7 hours in cramped conditions unable to recline their seats. They have the wittiest headlines, a great tabloid style of writing (punchy, fresh + succinct). It’s also the only red top that understands tabloids should be fun as well as serious. Also quite like Fergus Shanahan's column, which shows it does have a liberal, fair-minded voice among columnists like Clarkson and Gaunt. And its website is better than any of it's rivals by a long distance.
@Darren Agreed on the website (quality headlines: "Lib Dumb"); and you make a convincing argument around the strength of its sport - but sport is a tough sell on paid content front as it is such a commidity - that jet angle is elsewhere when i searched (lampard, jet, thigh injury).
yep it's gonna be a tough sell! i'm fully aware i'm in the minority here but maybe the minority is enough to sustain a viable business model built around paid-for online content. interesting times ahead!
I wonder if the best chance of micro-payments working will by area of interest rather than by a Big Name like Clarkson or 'general news'. The iTunes model works because is it specifically in the area of music or spoken word - ok, content for your ears then. I am sure there is a hell of a lot of content in newspapers and their websites that people throw away or ignore. The trick will be to try and find that piece of content without which the reader's day just would not feel complete - whether it be a particular sport, or a crossword or even a cartoon. The trick will be to unbundle the content and then re-package it by area of interest. Then you have a chance of a reader making that micro-payment.
Gordon Macmillan
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