The Sydney Morning Herald, the masthead newspaper of the Fairfax Media print empire, posted an interesting article in it’s business section today. In the article (under the digital futures part), a Merrill Lynch analyst predicts that “Fairfax might stop printing their newspapers and start charging subscribers to view their online offerings. The article further states that readers would pay $12.50 a month for the Herald’s output online – and that costs would fall by 45 per cent after scrapping newsprint”. This is definitely not a bad idea for struggling newspapers, as it’s estimated that 5-10 major newspapers in the US alone will have to shut their doors if their revenue numbers don’t pick up.
The first movers, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal are great examples of traditional print giants which have capitalised on their large reader base and turned it into online subscription revenues. The WSJ charges as little as $12 a month for it’s online edition with FT offering their monthly subscription at around $24 a month. The subscriptions are just a small part of the online revenue generated, the real money lies in the ad inventory that sells for a premium as advertisers know that the reader base is likely to be affluent and thus have higher disposable incomes.
Hence it will be very interesting to see when (if at all) mainstream Australian newspapers like the Sydney Morning Herald will start charging online readers subscription fees. Stay tuned for updates..
