MediaNews Group to put up paywalls

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on February 8, 2010 at 3:16 PM

MediaNews Group will begin charging for online content in May, adopting a metered paywall system similar to the one The New York Times announced it will put up, Bloomberg reported Friday. The U.S. newspaper publisher will use Journalism Online LLC to handle processing of payments for its Web sites.

The test will begin at the company's Enterprise-Record in Chico, California, and Daily Record in York, Pennsylvania. If it's successful, the paywall may be instituted at more than 50 dailies owned by MediaNews, including The Denver Post and San Jose Mercurcy News, the Denver Business Journal reported Saturday.

Image: Superchou's Flickr photostream

Paid subscribers of the Enterprise-Record and Daily Record will have complete access to the papers' online content, or could have to pay a small "up-charge," the amount of which has yet to be decided, MediaNews President Joseph Lodovic told Bloomberg.

The holding company for MediaNews Group filed for bankruptcy at the end of January. Affiliated Media Inc., the privately held parent company for the publisher, expects to emerge from bankruptcy in one or two months. It has said that it has a deal with creditors to reduce its $930 million debt to $165 million.

The metered paywall at MediaNews will likely go up faster than that of The Times, which is set to launch next year, because The Times is building its own, custom service, paidContent reported. "The FT and the NYT are working on building their websites into distinct businesses apart from the primary print business. While [Chairman and CEO Dean] Singleton waits for the paywalls and online advertising to cease being ancillary to the traditional print side, the immediate goal of this plan is to drive more subscribers to the physical newspaper."

Journalism Online, was launched in April 2009 by Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindrey, hopes regular visitors will pay for complete access, while one-time or infrequent visitors won't be barred.

"We are refusing to launch pay walls where you say to first-time visitors 'pay or go away,'" and will instead give visitors access to 10 to 15 articles for free before asking for payment.