NME is to start charging for access to some online articles, though the publisher has insisted that there are no plans to introduce a full paywall to the site.
The trial begins with NME asking readers to pay 69p for an “enhanced digital” version of the latest cover feature on the indie band Haim, released today, while the rest of the edition will remain free.
NME’s 62-year print readership has almost halved in the last decade, dropping from 520,000 in September 2003, to 268,000 in September 2012.
A number of magazine brands have already experimented with subscription-only access to content, including Rolling Stone and Esquire, but it is a rough science and publishers appear to be still experimenting to find a truly safe, workable business model.
Emma Cranston, investment account director at Manning Gottlieb OMD said that IPC’s NME can’t be blamed for trialling a paywall.
“NME’s online arm has a reported 8 million unique monthly users, therefore, why wouldn’t IPC want to cash in on this? The question is whether the NME.com audience are prepared to pay for this content. Across the young music sector it appears that this audience is not consuming content in a print form. In fact this generation are not used to paying for any content, which is one of the reasons the print circulation has gone the way it has.”
Cranston added that this could be a step towards NME closing its ‘dwindling’ print title in order to concentrate on the digital arm.
“The key for this to be a success is for IPC to make the content exclusive and of high quality that people give up their cash and most importantly personal details. IPC will then be able to use this data capture with their large scale numbers to provide improved targeting to advertisers, which they will then be able to charge a premium for.”
