Variety to begin charging for online content
Posted by Simon Day on September 18, 2009 at 1:44 PM
Hollywood trade newspaper Variety will begin charging for access to portions of its online content, its publisher revealed on Thursday and The Associated Press reported today.
Starting early next year, access to exclusive content and new features will require annual paid subscription, a move that publisher Brian Gott says is necessary to maintain economic feasibility.
Starting early next year, access to exclusive content and new features will require annual paid subscription, a move that publisher Brian Gott says is necessary to maintain economic feasibility.
"It's getting ahead of something that inevitably will happen and creating a business strategy around maintaining the viability of being a paid product," Gott said, according to the AP.
The move will provide insight into the potential for niche publications to charge their audiences for specialised online content. The newspaper's main rival, The Hollywood Reporter, has not made any plans to change access costs to its Web site that is currently predominantly free, but keeps 45-day old archives and film shooting schedules for paying subscribers only. The Hollywood Reporter is a privately held publication of The Nielsen Co.
Currently subscriptions to Variety, owned by London and Amsterdam-based Reed Elsevier Group PLC, are US$329 a year for either the daily or the weekly print edition, or a digital, PDF equivalent. The Web site was formerly reserved for paying subscribers but in 2006 the site became freely available to boost traffic. The newspaper is yet to reveal how much content will be reserved for paying customers. How much of the new site will be reserved for paying customers has yet to be finalized.
In an interview with the LA Times, Gott said the free content experiment did not provide enough extra traffic to offset revenue from paid subscriptions. "Everyone thought then that if you got more traffic, you could sell more ads and make a ton of money, so we made a real effort to open up to consumers," Gott said. "We have thought about our business strategy and decided we want to focus on serving the professional entertainment community."
The move will provide insight into the potential for niche publications to charge their audiences for specialised online content. The newspaper's main rival, The Hollywood Reporter, has not made any plans to change access costs to its Web site that is currently predominantly free, but keeps 45-day old archives and film shooting schedules for paying subscribers only. The Hollywood Reporter is a privately held publication of The Nielsen Co.
Currently subscriptions to Variety, owned by London and Amsterdam-based Reed Elsevier Group PLC, are US$329 a year for either the daily or the weekly print edition, or a digital, PDF equivalent. The Web site was formerly reserved for paying subscribers but in 2006 the site became freely available to boost traffic. The newspaper is yet to reveal how much content will be reserved for paying customers. How much of the new site will be reserved for paying customers has yet to be finalized.
In an interview with the LA Times, Gott said the free content experiment did not provide enough extra traffic to offset revenue from paid subscriptions. "Everyone thought then that if you got more traffic, you could sell more ads and make a ton of money, so we made a real effort to open up to consumers," Gott said. "We have thought about our business strategy and decided we want to focus on serving the professional entertainment community."
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