Postmedia Network will roll out a plan to charge readers for online content to more of its newspapers as it struggles with lower advertising and print circulation income.
CEO Paul Godfrey said Friday that the newspaper and multimedia company is pleased with the results of its experiment with a subscription-based model, which it plans to launch on a broader scale in “the months ahead.”
The company had previously launched a test program at the recently sold Victoria Times Colonist and Montreal Gazette.
Each paper tested slightly different “metering” models. Subscribers at the Gazette have access for free, but non-subscribers pay $6.95 per month. Monthly online subscriptions to the Times Colonist digital edition were $9.95, while current print edition subscribers got full access for $2.95 a month.
The publisher of the National Post, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun and Ottawa Citizen said it will expand the model to its other newspapers. Godfrey did not elaborate on which pay-per-view model it would adopt.
Viewers of the papers’ online editions who don’t have a subscription will have limited access as more of its websites become metered. Similar policies have already been adopted by many major newspapers around the world such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
“We still believe that this is part of the future in the industry,” Godfrey told analysts on a conference call Friday.
“We’ve been watching the New York Times have considerable success in this area, (even as) their ad revenues are down (and) their print circulation is down.”
Postmedia announced its quarterly figures last week.
