Here are two questions you should soon prepare yourself for before logging on to your favourite website: How badly do you want to read this? How much can you pay?
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise considering media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been warning us for a while now. The wait period just got shorter after his empire recorded losses, forcing him to insist on charging for access to all his news websites within the next year.
As Murdoch is undoubtedly aware, of course, this won’t be easy. After all, the Internet is full of freeloaders, file-sharers, pirates, as well as folk like you and me — all pretty used to getting what they want without paying a rupee. Two major news sites that have successfully managed to charge for access are The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, presumably because their users feel that content can’t be found elsewhere. Can Indian news sites attract such paying customers?
Let’s take a step back to where this notion of free content came from. What content creators initially bet on, rightly, was that free content would attract more eyeballs. They assumed — again, rightly — eyeballs would attract advertisers. The flaw: when online ad budgets dropped, websites dropped out of sight.
Sameer Pitalwalla, Head, Times Audience Network, digital video arm of The Times Group, believes news no longer needs a newspaper or website. When pop star Michael Jackson died earlier this year, CNN.com was the only traditional media outlet among the top 10 sites attracting traffic. Pitalwalla believes Murdoch’s strategy will have converts, but only a few. “It will not replace print dollars,” he says. “In fact, it will cripple viewership on heavily trafficked ‘plateau destination’ sites, eroding ad dollars as well.” He refers to this as a transition phase. “If a revenue model besides advertising hasn’t been figured out yet, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Nor does it mean the only way out is straight-jacketing what worked on another medium onto a new one, without fully understanding it.”
Content is still pretty much what keeps the Web afloat. Also, consumers already pay for content on television and mobile, which is why the lack of a viable online model is so hard to fathom. Content from bloggers and independent publishers, coupled with better Search Engine Optimization, has only compounded the issue.
Zaki Ansari, Vice President (Product Development) at Rediff.com says, “As a personal opinion, I think the paid content model will work — but with Internet access through mobile devices, rather than PCs. Users already pay small amounts for mobile content; this is inevitably the way to go. Also, Internet access from handheld and other devices is only set to increase, which makes it a viable market.”
Free or paid, the outcome will certainly affect how media planners go about their business too. Rammohan Sundaram, CEO and Managing Director, Networkplay.in, an audience-focused vertical ad network, says his job becomes easier, “because affluence in the paid content category of users will only mean we can position a property in the premium category to get the desired throughput for publishers on brands that don’t worry about cost to reach the right audience.”
Irrespective of how this debate pans out, many believe there will be valuable lessons taught. Chris George, CEO, global marketing services major EBS Worldwide, is intrigued by paid content because it will test the belief of publishers in what they choose to put out. “It will also be a huge opportunity to review what readers consider to be worthy of their money,” he says. “And that kind of data is always valuable for anyone interested in marketing.”
What everyone agrees upon, for now, is that content is still king. Do customers still bow in homage — that’s a whole other story.
— This story appeared in the Mid-Day on August 25, 2009.
