Newsquest/Gannett dares to erect paywall at Northern Echo
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Version 0 of 1. In a further flight from reality, Newsquest/Gannett has introduced a paywall at one of its regional dailies, the Darlington-based Northern Echo. Readers are being given free access to 10 articles a month before being required to register. If they do, they will get a further 10 articles without charge before triggering a £1-a-week fee, which gives them unlimited digital access. Should people want the Echo’s newsprint copies as well as its online products - website, apps, email headline alerts and archive - they must pay £3.47 a week. The paper’s editor, Peter Barron, has made a good fist of embracing his publisher’s decision to erect a paywall. After reminding readers of the newspaper’s proud history since its launch in 1870 by listing several of its campaigning achievements, he noted the effects of the digital revolution “with people consuming information in a variety of ways”. He wrote: “The modern Northern Echo is much more than just a newspaper and now it is easier to access our information and unrivalled local journalism wherever and whenever you want it. Quality journalism costs money to produce but we have made it great value with a combination of print and online packages from just £1 per week”. It is, admittedly, a very cheap introduction to the practice of paying and that may well stimulate subscriptions. It also helps that the Echo remains a terrific paper and that it has a following of loyal readers. But there is a real danger is that it will lead to many fewer people clicking on to the site once they reach their free quota. That said, Newsquest does have experience with metered paywalls. Its Glasgow group, built around The Herald, began charging for access four years ago. And Newsquest isn’t alone in trying to persuade people to pay for its online content. The Jersey Evening Post, owned by the Claverley Group, put up a paywall in February. And the Aberdeen Press & Journal, owned by DC Thomson, started charging for access in summer last year. But the omens are far from auspicious. HoldTheFrontPage points out that the last English regional daily to introduce a paywall was the Wolverhampton-based Express & Star (also owned by the Claverley Group) in 2011. It demolished it nine months’ later. That followed a failed charging-for-access experiment at several weeklies owned by Johnston Press, which began in November 2009 and was dropped the following March. So Newsquest, which misguidedly raised the cover prices of several of its newsprint titles in 2012 and 2013 to levels that resulted in plunging sales, is taking a big risk with this new revenue-raising move. Which of its titles will be next to choke off online readers? The Lancashire Telegraph, the Southern Daily Echo, the Oxford Mail? Or will it be the Brighton Argus, the print version of which has so markedly improved under its new editor, Mike Gilson? |