The digital world is booming, but keeping on top of content access is an area of growing concern for publishers. Major publishing house Fairfax recently revealed it will be testing out the introduction of paywalls on a number of its titles.
A partnership with Sydney-based startup TapView will see paywalls introduced to local titles Bay Post-Moruya Examiner and Milton Ulladulla Times, with the deal seeing a small fee subscription model required to access content. It is believed that following success, more digital publications will become affected by a paywall integration.
Paywalls have been used sometime in the wider publishing industry, including by titles The New York Times and The Washington Post, but the trend is only beginning to take off in Australia. Fairfax head of product Robert Beerworth tells AdNews: “As digital news models have evolved in recent years, subscriptions have become more and more common. We may charge at other sites in the future but no decisions have been made about this.”
Paywalls look set to become increasingly common practice as digital continues to grow. It’s a mantra that was outlined by Fairfax’s Greg Hywood at the recent NewsMediaWorks Future Forum event. AdNews reports that Hywood believes audiences are far more accepting of subscription-based services thanks to a rise in use of digital platforms Stan, Presto and Netflix. He also commented that the media can no-longer focus on advertising revenue alone, but rather must integrate subscription-based practice to stay afloat.
