UK online consumers expect more for free
Jinfo Blog

28th April 2010

By Penny Crossland

Item

Last week, KPMG published its six monthly UK Media and Entertainment Barometer (http://digbig.com/5bbmtc),and it makes uneasy reading for those newspaper publishers planning to introduce paywalls for their online editions. (see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e28452 and http://www.vivavip.com/go/e28005 for postings on the subject) While those UK consumers polled (more than 1,000) spent more time using all kinds of digital media (and print media for that matter ) than six months ago, they are spending less on it in monetary terms. Between September 2009 and March 2010, average consumer expenditure on digital media fell by 50%, while the number of hours per month spent using all things digital increased from 6.15 hours to 7.5 hours. It would seem that the more internet savvy we become, the more we expect our online media to be free and what’s more, the better we get at finding what we want for free. Some of the key findings include: * 88% of online news readers stated they found the news they wanted for free, as opposed to 84% six months ago. * Interestingly, only 10% of those surveyed said they would consider taking out a paid subscription (either offline or online) within the next 12 months; and of these only 31% would consider paying for news * 21% of print newspaper readers said they paid nothing for their paper in March, compared to 15% in September * 19% of magazine readers paid nothing, as opposed to 12% in September So, while the good news for digital media publishers is that more and more of us are spending time online, the challenge is how to make money out of us. As David Elms, the report’s author says: "Creating integrated business models which make the most of both traditional and digital business models is key for the sector”.

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