Financial Times has exhorted its peers to consider charging for their online content. The company said that if a publisher believes
that their content is unique then they should charge the readers appropriately. He also stressed that subscription fee need not lead to the decrease in advertising revenue. In reality, many online publishers shy away from charging readers as they believe that such fee would dry up their traffic and would consequently lead to a dip in advertising revenue. To assuage such concerns, FT provided its own example as it claimed to increase its digital subscription revenue by 50 percent during the last year. It also claimed that its advertising revenue also increased by double digit percentage points during that time period.
FT currently lets its registered users read up to 10 articles per month and after that, they need to pay for subscription for accessing any further content. However, with the plethora of quality information being given away for free online, it is difficult to see online users digging into their pockets for paying the subscription fee. So, do you agree with FT and would you be willing to pay for your news online?
Image: FT