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Pay wall fail : $650 million Newsday acquisition garners just 35 subscribers in three months
I've never heard of Newsday, but apparently it's a big daily paper from Long Island, New York. It was bought by the Dolans (the original owners of the HBO network) in 2008 for $650 million. Recently the Newsday website was overhauled for the princely sum of $4 million. It then went behind a pay wall in October 2009 -- since then (over three months ago) they have managed to accrue a total of 35 subscribers. Those 35 people have, so far, netted the paper a grand total of $9,000.
They have managed to find just shy of three dozen -- twoscore minus four -- people willing to pay five dollars a week for quality news reporting.
If I was Rupert Murdoch and about to sink my crowning glory of a newspaper behind a pay wall, I'd be a little scared right now.
Comments
13
Subscribe to commentsBrianJan 27th 2010 7:28AM
At least those 35 people will get a super fast site... :)
Tim WindsorJan 27th 2010 8:15AM
While I think that the Newsday strategy is dumb overall, they're not a good bellwether for other sites going behind the paywall because they're making all of their site free to a) Newsday print subscribers and b) Long Island Cablevision subscribers. This supposedly gets them to about 75% potential penetration of their market.
Again, I think that a full wall strategy is a bad idea, but given that their strategy is more about sacrificing the web site to prop up the paper, a more telling metric will be the next ABC print circulation audit which comes in March or April. If they stopped the bleeding, this may be a minor success on their terms.
A very short-sighted success, though.
Sebastian AnthonyJan 27th 2010 11:48AM
Ya, I'm sure they are doing just fine, with their automatically-subscribed userbase of cable users.
It's by no means representative of a wider and well-advertised launch, like the NY Times would surely do.
SchwinnJan 27th 2010 8:37AM
Wait... $9,000 from 35 people over 3 months? That's over $250 per person, for 3 months... or $85 a month... holy crap!
Sebastian AnthonyJan 27th 2010 11:46AM
Yeah, I was just parroting the figures there -- but I didn't think they added up.
It's $5/week... so in three months that's... only $60... times 35... is not $9000...
Ah well!
MarkJan 27th 2010 8:39AM
It's actually not as bad as it sounds. I'd wager that the vast majority of people that are interested in Newsday are automatically subscribed.
I go to newsday.com occasionally, and this is the first I've ever even heard of a paywall.
Optimum online is virtually the only decent broadband provider for most if not all of long island. Verizon DSL is horrendous out here, and FIOS has very limited penetration.
Who knows what kind of kickback theyre getting from optimum.
Newsday is hardly a bastion of journalistic integrity, but who is nowadays?
MxxConJan 27th 2010 9:27AM
Cablevision owns newsday, that kind of kickback :)
TobyJan 27th 2010 9:22AM
Um, who is "Richard Murdoch"?
Sebastian AnthonyJan 27th 2010 11:45AM
It's Rupert's more well-to-do brother!
KevinJan 27th 2010 9:36AM
I think it's funny that newspapers are trying to get people who don't want to pay to watch movies or download music to pay to read something on a web page.
SeanJan 27th 2010 12:21PM
Rupert Murdoch does not own the New York Times. He owns News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal, a site which has been behind a pay wall for quite some time (and claims to be doing well under that model). The NYT is owned by Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., so really it's Sulzberger who should be worried about the future of his "balls," not Murdoch.
Fact checking FTW.
Sebastian AnthonyJan 27th 2010 12:28PM
Hehe, I actually wondered if I'd got that one right -- I did some Googling, but I must've got the queries wrong.
But the point still stands: Murdoch better have big balls!
(And the NYT guys too.)
enerGIJan 27th 2010 4:09PM
The first test for Murdoch's balls are if Fox puts Conan back on TV against Leno.