Begin by looking at some of the market research. The Newspaper Association of America found that, although in the 18- to-24-year-old age bracket physical newspaper reading and online newspaper reading was the same (14 percent of the sample read
both), the figures changed in older age brackets. Among 25-to-35- year-olds, 25 percent read the online paper and 19 percent read the hard copy. The 35-to-44 age group also skewed slightly in favor of online newspapers (28 percent to 25 percent for print).
The NAA’s report revealed other interesting facts. While 57 per- cent of adults read a daily newspaper, 67 percent read a daily paper online; and while 67 percent read a Sunday paper, 78 percent read a Sunday paper online. The report, called “Synergize for Success,”
was based on 3,693 interviews with adults (aged 18 and over).4 Another study, commissioned by the Internet service provider Freeserve, stated that the Web placed third in terms of where people get their news—behind television and radio, but before newspapers.5 There are, however, conflicting reports. In July 2002, a study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press reported only 25 percent of Americans go online for news at least three times per week. The report, based on interviews with 3,000 adults, hinted that perhaps “news” doesn’t stand out as a category because of its ubiquity.6 Forrester Research, a well-respected market analysis firm, concluded that just 23 percent of Internet users say the Web is where they get their news. Television is the preferred source.7
Other polls show Web news use going mainstream and rising, with 80 percent of Web surfers trusting Web news providers and 7 percent of that number saying that online news was more reliable than any other media!8,9 Concerning the future, Forrester concluded in a sep- arate study that 57 percent of children aged 6 to 15 believe that they will get the majority of their daily news from the Internet.10
What Online News Consumers Want
Historically, the strength of newspapers has lain in their timeliness.
The era of waiting for the newspaper carrier to stop by or, in cases where the mail carries news from “home” through an out-of-state paper, has ended. Web surfers want their news whenever they are ready to read it, and the Internet affords this advantage.
A joint study by Stanford University and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies concluded that when individuals go to a news Web site, they go there to gather information. This may seem obvious, but the study showed that when online, Web surfers read about 75 percent of the articles they look at, while people who read hard copy magazines and newspapers read around 30 percent of each article.11The study also found that photos and other graphics are, by far, of secondary concern.
The conclusions seem to contradict the experience of Mike Wendland, a journalist who covers the Internet and is a fellow at the Poynter Institute. In a New York Times essay, Mr. Wendland described personal research where he went without the physical newspaper for five months. He wrote, “I surfed the Web several times a day, reading the electronic editions of my regular papers and several others. Let me tell you: for a guy who has devoted the last few years of his professional life preaching new media and the Internet, I am amazed at how frustrated I was without my printed newspaper. I missed it.”12
Mr. Wendland stated he could not find much local news; he also missed leisurely turning the pages and the serendipity of fascinat- ing articles that waited. But he also concluded throughout the five months of monitoring the Web sites of theNew York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, ABCNews.com, the Detroit Free Press, and theDetroit Newsthat, overall, he didn’t miss much news.
Pay for Online News? I Think Not
The top five daily newspapers by circulation are the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, theNew York Times, theLos Angeles Times, and theWashington Post. Four of these publications are free to read, almost in their entirety, on the Web. Only theWall Street Journal has maintained a subscription model for access to its site.
This has not always been the case; in the future it may not con- tinue to be the case. In the early days of Web news, some publishers
attempted to charge for access to their papers’ sites. In 1997, Editor
& Publisher reported that the San Antonio Express-News site (http://www.mysanantonio.com) was charging for most of its con- tent—and turning a profit.13Today it no longer charges. Similarly, the San Jose Mercury News at http://www.bayarea.com/mld/
mercurynews, which had charged a subscription to its site begin- ning in April 1995, dropped its fees by June 1998.14
The reasoning behind free access to newspaper sites is based on the realization that news can be readily obtained via thousands of providers. You can turn on the television or radio and get basic news free. If a Web site charges for its content, it alienates readers who will simply go to another site that does not. If a site invokes fees, it may engage some diehard readers, but it will drive away a million others. Is it more effective to expose millions of site visitors to the Web site’s sponsors through banner advertisements and co- branded services and products, or simply hope that subscription revenue will sustain the site?
Recent trends indicate that Web users are more willing to pay for certain products. Subscriptions to e-greeting card services is an example. But with innumerable news sites available, many of which will probably never introduce fees, such as the BBC in the United Kingdom, it remains difficult for publishers to charge. One strategy that some Web sites use involves a tiered subscription model. The Financial Times(http://www.ft.com) from London, for instance, has three tiers. Site visitors have free access to the latest news and business data. Subscription level #1 allows full access to the news including search and retrieval of five years of the paper, plus access to surveys of business trends. Level #2 subscribers receive, in addition, world company financial information for 18,000 businesses plus access to World Press Monitor’s 500 media sources. The hypothesis is that no one will be driven away by the fees because they can still access the mainstream news, and truly interested parties will pay for the value-added content.
Some players have made the fee-based model work: TheWall Street Journal Online had 200,000 paying subscribers in 1998 and 591,000 in June 2001. The WSJeven raised its online subscription rate from $59 to $79 in July 2002.15Boasting 646,000 subscriptions, the news and financial Web site has proved that charging for access can work. The WSJ takes a completely different approach when con- trasted with the Financial Times. All the information from the WSJis
“behind the veil,” accessible only to subscribers. Everything but the skeletal headlines requires a subscriber login. It works because its readers have well-defined interests that only the WSJcan satisfy. But few news Web sites that charge have been successful.
Once in awhile, albeit infrequently, Web surfers will come upon the odd news site that requires a subscription. The Chanute Tribune (based in Kansas) at http://www.dailynews.net/chanute offers free online content, but turned to password-protected sub- scription access for most of its news. Moreover, the paper not only charges $4 per month for Web access to people outside its local delivery area, it charges $6 per month to people who live nearby.
But when the fee was imposed, site traffic that had averaged 600 hits per day dropped by 50 percent.16
Almost all newspapers with a Web presence are free. The Wall Street Journal Online and the Chanute Tribune are conspicuous exceptions. Newspapers on the Web reason that they can provide free content, and not rely on subscriptions, because they do not have to run advertisements that people may only happen to be interested in, but can show site visitors advertisements that will appeal to viewer interests by using various Web tools.