First Click Free for FT
Jinfo Blog

23rd February 2010

By Penny Crossland

Item

Last week’s paidcontent 2010 conference (http://paidcontent.org/event/paidcontent-2010/ and http://paidcontent.org/article/419-pc2010-our-full-coverage/) unsurprisingly focussed on the introduction of paywalls to newspapers‘ web sites, a topic we have been reporting on for several months. see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e24652 ; http://www.vivavip.com/go/e22457 ; http://www.vivavip.com/go/e19910). Nancy Davis Kho wrote in January about the New York Times‘ plans to introduce a metered access model (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27802), a business model described by NYT’s President & CEO, Janet Robinson as “an elegant solution“(http://digbig.com/5bbcxn). Robinson sees strong advertising sales as the key to making paid access to news a success, while making sure that the audience is not put off by too high costs per article. The Financial Times meanwhile, long held up as an example of how to introduce paywalls while keeping your customers happy is now implementing Google’s modified First-Click Free scheme (see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27361 for an earlier report on the programme). The FT is reportedly planning to introduce the scheme in the second quarter of this year. The scheme limits the number of free articles each reader can access via Google to five per day, after which users are encouraged to subscribe for more. Up to now, canny Google searchers have been able to circumvent the FT’s paywall by searching for headlines of stories behind the wall and get news through the back door. The pioneer of the fremium model is also in the process of devising a “day pass“ for occasional users of FT content via online or by mobile. (see paidcontent:http://digbig.com/5bbcxp) This would capture those unwilling to take out annual subscriptions to the site. The technology to enable this platform will be available later in the year. Ft.com seems to be on a roll. According to a Reuters blog (http://digbig.com/5bbcxm), the FT has seen advertising revenues increase since the introduction of its paywall. Subscribers to ft.com have now reached 121,000, an increase of 22 per cent in the last year, while the number of registered users is 1.9 million. The FT’s success however is all due to the fact that it produces content that its readers value and think is worth paying for. It remains to be seen whether the online newspapers planning to follow suit can emulate the FT’s success.

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