Mecom to introduce paywalls around specific online content
David Montgomery’s European newspaper group is to introduce paywalls around specific online content.
Mecom has developed a new online paid-for content strategy, which is due to announced alongside the group’s annual results in March, according to reports.
The decision comes after the newspaper group, which publishes over 300 European titles, announced better-than-expected results in a trading update yesterday.
Montgomery, chief executive of Mecom, told MediaGuardian that his incoming plan will focus on charging for specific and unique content, as opposed to general news content.
“Scandinavians and in particular smaller papers in Norway are making faster strides in online revenue development,” he said. “We are concentrating on one or two initiatives to capitalise on that more aggressively. There is enough evidence to demonstrate that newspapers can be transformed and exploited online commercially.”
Montgomery believes generating revenues from online content will potentially make up for declines in print ad revenue in the future. Mecom has already made savings of £124 million after introducing a cost-cutting programme during the downturn, which was well ahead of its original £67 million target.
The new online strategy is expected to see Mecom invest in developing more localised content, in a bid to increase its digital audience. “The goal, frankly, is to capture the market locally online as we have in print,” Montgomery said.
The chief executive warned that the company would face a major shake-up this year following the implementation of the new strategy, which will see staff working on both print and online products.
However, he added that Mecom’s focus on digital would not put an end to its print operation. The group has managed to keep circulation and subscriptions relatively solid throughout the downturn, which has been a “crisis of advertising”, not a crisis of newspapers, according to Montgomery.
The paywall debate, which has divided the industry, has been widely considered since Rupert Murdoch announced plans to start charging users to access News International’s online news content last May.
The News Corporation chief promised to implement paywalls by the end of June 2010 to sites including The Times and The Sun online following the success of the Wall Street Journal‘s pay model.
However, since then, Murdoch has been forced to admit that the company is behind schedule to introduce a model by the end of News Corporation’s financial year.