Study: Most consumers 'won't access' content they must pay for

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on November 19, 2009 at 4:45 PM

If newspaper or magazine content online was no longer free, 80 percent of consumers say they would not pay for access, a new Forrester Research report has found.

The remaining respondents who were willing to pay are split on how to pay: 8 percent said they would prefer a subscription for all online content, and another 8 percent said they would like one subscription to cover print, online and mobile. Three percent, meanwhile, said they would prefer to pay per article.

Because not everyone can agree on whether - or how - to pay, it's clear that giving consumers a choice, from free content to different types of paid content, may be the way to go, suggests Forrester's Sarah Rotman Epps.

"There's no one delivery platform, and no one pricing model, that will satisfy all consumers," she writes.

Meanwhile, almost 50 percent of North American editors have said they doubt paid content is the only answer, the American Press Institute reported in September. The API urged publishers look to the five-point plan put forth earlier this year by the Newspaper Association of America. The five points involve "doctrines" respecting true value, fair use, fair share, digital development and consumer-centric practices.