As publishers continue to wrestle with the best way to monetise online content, Sports Illustrated is set to roll-out a new paywall experiment – bribing readers with early access to print articles if they watch a 30-second video ad first.
Paywalls are becoming increasingly common, with the Independent and Evening Standard’s group content director Chris Blackhurst recently stating that all online national newspaper content will go behind a paywall eventually – noting that it makes no economic sense otherwise.
In the UK, many magazines run on a subscription-only, or metered paywall basis, whilst other content platforms are free to access.
However, giving content away for free is deemed an undesirable business proposition by many in the industry, including News UK chief executive Mike Darcey, who is an uncompromising believer in charging for expensively assembled content. Yet at the same time many publishers appear nervous about losing readers if a blanket paywall is placed around content.
For the time being, the Sports Illustrated experiment has only been applied to desktop browsers and limited to a range of Sports Illustrated stories. Viewers are offered a choice of adverts, and once an ad has been watched, the article will unlock for 24 hours.
“At the end of the day, every publisher is looking to boost their subscription base,” Selectable Media CEO Matt Minoff said.
“More and more people are expecting content to be free. Publishers are coming to grips with that new reality and looking for new ways to monetise that content and create premium content that can still be profitable.”
Selectable Media, who has partnered with Sports Illustrated to test the paywall out, claims that in general 50-70% of visitors are likely to view videos in exchange for content.
