Most would say that digital transformation in the news industry is crucial, but being fully reliant on digital readers may be a myth.
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Although many subscribers to The New York Times do pay for their news. By introducing a paywall in their business model, the publisher has now cultivated over 2.2 million paying readers.
What is a Paywall?
So you click onto a website that publishes news and content. After reading a few articles a screen comes up saying that you're number of free articles has exceeded and you need to pay to unlock reading the whole website. Have you ever experienced that? If so, that, my friend is a paywall. It restricts access in the hopes to incentivise you to pay for content should you want to read more. Thus, firms who employ this business model need to ensure their content remains relevant and of high quality to attract subscribers.
And it seems The New York Times is doing a great job. In fact, so great that it seems like a 'smart' decision to cut print out altogether.
Benefits of digital print in terms of:
- accessibility and proliferation of information
- attracting a larger readership market (think of individuals scrolling on Facebook and essentially 'reading the news' on their timeline
- convenience
- opportunity to be more interactive by including videos
HMMMMM
However, not everyone is super convinced about the sustainability of this digital model. I'm slightly apprehensive about it. I mean, I do agree that digital will be widespread - eventually, but for now, it wouldn't be wise to completely cut print from existence.
For example, most people actually enjoy reading actual print. There's evidence that readers still engage with print rather than their digital counterparts.
What do you think?