OC Register to set up pay wall to attract readers

money-handsWe read the headline last night, “Register to launch online pay wall” and thought, wow, Aaron Kushner must have a lot of money to throw around. We know that readership of newspapers is a bit down, but setting up a wall so that you can pay people to read your publication online seems to be another one of those indescribably innovative ideas the the OC Register’s new publisher is becoming known for.

The way we understand it, starting this week, the OC Register will be setting up a pay wall that will require readers to set up a Paypal account and subscribe to the paper, agreeing to be paid to read it every day, in order to see articles online. If you don’t want to sign up for daily delivery, you can sign up to take the paper on a day-by-day basis, but that will cost you a bit more than you may want to pay.

According to this story in the OC Register; “A limited amount of content such as weather, traffic, movie listings, the calendar of events and headlines of local news stories will remain free.” We wish we had money to throw around to boost our traffic. Imagine all the advertisers we could attract with paid circulation.

5 Comments

  1. I don’t think you understand what a paywall is unless I missed a sarcastic stab at the Register. A paywall means that readers will now have to pay Kushner to read. Very similar to what the OC Business Journal has done for years.

    If you believe Kushner will lose money on this “innovative” new program, it will be because his circulation might actually go down, thus possibly loosing the strength of his advertising dollars, which generally secure more revenue for any publication – online or print.

    • Elena,

      I hope you realize that this was an April Fool’s Day post based upon the real story of the Register pay wall going up. In general, I agree with most of your observations.

  2. The real hit to the print media is not about paying for news content.

    The real hit came in two forms. The first one is the price of newsprint skyrocketed. I read that it was like 300% in the first couple years of the last decade. Hence the smaller paper size.

    The second hit was the not just internet news, but internet advertising. Newspapers drew a lot of revenue from classified ads. Anyone who ever placed a classified remembers that it was a pricey option. Especially if it was for the Sunday edition of the LA Times. Craigslist blew up that revenue stream for newspapers. Why would anyone pay for a print ad when they can get a free online ad that can accessed by anyone with a connection anywhere in the world?

    It was a perfect storm of financial combination punches. Personally I believe that newsprint is a dying model that only appeals to the boomer generation and the one just behind it. The millenials I know don’t read newsprint.

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