We’ve seemingly spent the past six-months obsessing about online business models for traditional media. That was the view of Emily Bell, the Guardian’s director of digital content, speaking at The Guardian’s Changing Media Conference two weeks ago. She’s spot on.
But with Murdoch’s move to erect a paywall around Times Online from June we’ve now seen almost all of the broadsheet newspapers set out their stall for generating income from content online – and all are taking very different approaches.
Here’s a summary.
- Financial Times – micropayments
- The Times – £1 daily or £2 weekly paywall
- The Daily Telegraph – content, commerce and clubs
- The Guardian – advertising and applications
- The Independent – writing in PaidContent on Friday, Forrester’s Nick Thomas predicts that new owner Alexander Lebedev may repeat The Standard’s approach offer The Independent for free
As the Financial Times has demonstrated success requires a mix of business model and distinctive editorial – particularly when the BBC and others provide so much news content for free.
The attitude of broadsheet publishers to aggregators and search is less clear. The Times recently started blocking clipping agency Meltwater and aggregator NewsNow, but for now at least it is allowing Google in.
Google aggressively counters the claim that it is a parasite feeding off traditional media.
Speaking at the Financial Times Media & Broadcast Conference at the beginning of the March, Google UK’s managing director Matt Brittin said that the search engine was a virtual newsagent that sent four billion clicks a month to online news web sites.
So which model will work? There’s no way of telling. If I knew the answer I’d be seeking out an opportunity to invest behind one of these emerging business models.

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