It is starting to look as though Rupert Murdoch is determined to hide much of the news content on his media websites behind paywalls, no matter how many times he's told that this is rather a bad idea.
He will not be the first to do so.
Here is The Newport Daily News June 2009 paywall pricing strategy courtesy of Nieman Journalism Lab:
The 12,000-circulation Rhode Island newspaper is old school — it still publishes afternoons on Mondays through Fridays, with a morning edition on Saturday. Last month, the newspaper announced a new three-tier pricing structure for subscriptions. Want home delivery of the print paper? That's $145 a year. Want home delivery and online access? That's $245. And if you want just online access — to an electronic edition that duplicates the appearance of the print product — it's a whopping $345.
While some online content is still currently free on the website of this unashamedly parochial newspaper, there has been an initial significant drop in daily unique online reader numbers to a mere 500 - around a quarter of the former online readership.
What circulation growth there is appears confined to casual readership via the news agent (which may not survive adverse weather conditions normal in northern hemisphere winter months) which is rather mixed news for featured advertisers as its new circulation figures only roughly equate with where the paper was ten years ago.
The sudden fall in online readership saw The Newport Daily News offer readers (from outside the county) a yearly limited time online news subscription for about $129.
Taking advantage of the fact that online readership was up for grabs, a month after the paywall went up, Island Communications Inc. launched a free online news website, Newport-now.com.
This blog-style site presents its own version of local news but also pokes its tongue out at The Newport News by running a short daily sidebar rundown on TNN's major stories under the banner Other Headlines.
It does the weather and obits which are standard fare in print newspapers and, it is likely to attract those advertisers following any changing online allegiance.
Newport-now is not the only free local site out there - a celebrity gossip website is also available.
All in all, a rather unpromising scenario Australian regional newspapers might have to take into consideration if they foolishly decide to jump on the paywall bandwagon - there's always someone else ready to offer local news for free.
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