Newspaper publishers remain divided on the merit of online paywalls, but the Atlantic Canada business news and politics site AllNovaScotia.com is doubling down on the idea that readers are willing to pay for high-quality journalism.
The 15-year-old online publisher announced Monday that is expanding into Newfoundland and Labrador with the launch of AllNewfoundlandLabrador.com. Veteran journalist Dan Arsenault, who spent 20 years as a crime reporter with Halifax daily The Chronicle Herald, is heading the new venture.
AllNovaScotia was established in 2001 by David Bentley, a Canadian publishing veteran who trained under Harold Evans, longtime editor of Britain’s The Sunday Times.
Bentley, who launched AllNovaScotia with his daughter Caroline Wood, has a long list of start-ups to his credit, including The Bedford Sackville News and the satirical magazine Frank.
AllNovaScotia.com currently boasts 9,400 paid subscribers, who pay an introductory rate of $15 per month for the first two months before the price increases to the regular rate of $30 per month (when they can add up to two more new readers at no additional cost).
“It’s been David’s vision from the outset to have quality content,” said managing editor Judy Myrden, who spent 25 years covering the offshore oil and energy sectors for The Chronicle Herald before jumping to AllNovaScotia.com in 2011. “If you have good quality content people will pay for it, and that’s been the secret to our success.”
The typical AllNovaScotia.com subscriber is between the ages of 35-55 and skews 65% male. The average subscriber spends between five and eight minutes reading stories produced by AllNovaScotia’s team of 17 writers and two editors.
The company has been testing the Newfoundland market for the past year. “We just saw it as an opportunity to grow our media business,” said Myrden. “We got a strong response and people were interested in subscribing.”
She described Newfoundland’s business community as “sophisticated, savvy and connected,” and said that the weekday publishing venture addresses a void in the market. “We just felt there was room for in-depth reporting of their business stories,” she said.
Subscription revenues account for roughly 80% of AllNovaScotia.com’s total revenue, with the remaining 20% coming from the mix of law firms, recruitment firms and that comprise its advertiser base.
While most modern news outlets freely distribute their stories via social media, AllNovaScotia.com has no Facebook or Twitter presence, keeping a tight lid on the 30 or so news and business stories it produces each day.
“We don’t want to give our content away for free,” said Myrden. “That’s always been very important to us. Obviously our subscribers are willing to pay for it because they believe there’s value in it.”
