Paid-For (Dis)Content

Today marks a watershed of sorts, in that the FT is seeing the crossover point between online and offline cash collected - PaidContent:

FT Group chief executive, John Ridding, says the landmark moment vindicates the FT’s strategy to charge. He has long advocated that other publishers should follow suit and abandon a “free is good” doctrine.

“In some of the key areas we are at a crucial stage of transformation, so that we reckon next [this] year will be the first year that revenues from content overtake revenues from print advertising,” he says. “The way things are evolving, content revenues should overtake all advertising revenues by 2012.”

This will of course lead to much hand wringing by the mainstream newspapers as to why they are struggling, and no doubt redoubled thoughts in News International about The Times and The Sun. The problem is, the FT's news is well researched and niche specific (and the niche is wealthy). But if I had to pay for news on Event X and The Times had a paywall I could just go to the Grauniad, Torygraph or Indiepedant - or the BBC. The Sun may find it a bit easier as the BBC will not be running as an alternative source for nubile babes getting their t*ts out (give them time....), but that's hardly a rarity online either.

No, the basic facts are summed up by an Economist article on the subject:

There are plenty of examples of paid content thriving even when free alternatives are available. There are a great many paid-for newsletters, from the Stockman Grass Farmer to the Gaming Industry Weekly Report. Punters are happy to pay for multichannel television even though commercial broadcast television is free. Such alternatives thrive because they offer desirable content. One considerable advantage to building a paywall is that it forces newspapers to think hard about what their customers (as opposed to their advertisers) might really want.

That last sentence pretty much encapsulates the (Scorched) Flat Earth policy the MSM has followed for 20 years, but its hardly news.....