Advertisement

Der Spiegel and the paywall debate

Georg Mascolo and Mathias Muller von Blumencron took over editing Der Spiegel in 2008, with the u...
Newstalk
Newstalk

16.06 11 Apr 2013


Share this article


Der Spiegel and the paywall de...

Der Spiegel and the paywall debate

Newstalk
Newstalk

16.06 11 Apr 2013


Share this article


Georg Mascolo and Mathias Muller von Blumencron took over editing Der Spiegel in 2008, with the ultimate goal of bringing the operation of the magazine’s print and online strands closer together through the collaborative efforts of the two editors.

However, disagreements saw the two splinter in 2011, with Mascolo taking responsibility for the print edition, and Blumencron the digital side. The recent firings have occurred as a result of an escalating dispute over the proposed addition of an online paywall that would restrict certain content on the site to paying viewers. Blumencron opposed the idea, with Mascolo pressing for its implementation. The pair have now been fired by the Der Spiegel’s board of directors.

Der Spiegel, operating from Hamburg, is one of Europe’s most popular weekly news publications with around a million readers, and is noted for their in-depth journalism and academic language. The fact checking-department alone employs around 80 people. Despite slow decreases in the print circulation, the online operation strand has remained profitable. The website also provides international and English-language content.

Advertisement

Paywall uncertainty

The current Der Spiegel incident is the latest in a long series of Internet paywall controversies. Debates over paywalls have waged since the early days of online journalism, with traditionally print publications continuously battling against falling print circulation, while also attempting to make their online offerings financially viable. Online advertising, for example, earns only a fraction of printed equivalents, and publications have been forced to experiment with alternative revenue models.

Some newspapers and magazines have settled on full or partial paywalls, restricting a majority of their content to paid online subscribers. The Wall Street Journal and the UK Times have implemented this model, from 1997 and 2010 respectively.

Other publications have experimented with ‘soft’ or metered paywalls: a method that allows users to access a certain amount of content over a period of time before being asked to pay. This model remains in place on high-profile sites such as The New York Times.

The Onion, the satirical website, restricts international readers to five free articles per month before requiring a digital subscription. The restrictions are not in the place in the US, where a printed Onion newspaper is also published in certain cities.

Several sites also use Google’s ‘First Click Free’ software – allowing search engine users to access a certain amount of usually restricted content for free when accessed through Google. The Financial Times, for example, have a full site paywall, but five articles a day can be read by clicking through via Google. The user can therefore see samples of the site’s subscriber-only offerings.

Successes and failures

While many publications have successfully established a digital subscriber base – often bundling a print subscription with the digital one to concurrently increase physical circulation – other sites have been less successful with their monetisation attempts. Variety, the long-running movie trade publication, had a metered paywall in place from 2010. However, after its acquisition late last year, the paywall was removed in February 2013 and the daily print edition retired (the weekly edition continues). New owner Jay Penske said that “Internally, we've been referring to the paywall dropping as 'the end of an error’. It was an interesting experiment that didn't work.”

Other publishers and editors have been vocal in their disagreement with paywalls on both commercial and ethical levels, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. The Guardian is one long-running paper that has vocally resisted the implementation of paid online content, despite the recent announcements that both The Sun and Daily Telegraph would begin charging readers in the UK.

In the video below, the Guardian host a presentation about paywalls from Zuora CEO Tien Tzou:

Critics of paywalls have argued that paid content can be a major turn-off for casual readers who click into a publication’s site. For many individuals, online content likely holds less value due to the huge availability of free content, with The Daily Mail’s owners arguing “people pay for the convenience of print in recognition of the special cost of production and delivery of a tangible product and because they purchase it WHOLE.” Many readers may migrate to free alternatives rather than purchase a subscription, which could result in a major decrease in general visitors for paywalled sites. Sites that publish both free and subscriber content hope to attract both casual readers and those in search of more in-depth content.

Some paywalls have proven successful financially. It was revealed in February, for example, that The New York Times had returned to profitability in 2012 after a loss in 2011, helped by a digital subscriber base of 668,000 readers (up 13% from the previous year).

Alternatives

The Guardian, which is overseen by an independent trust, has continued experimenting with alternate revenue streams to supplement advertising income online. API (or application programming initiative) is where content is licensed to third parties (particularly software developers) in exchange for a fee. API proponent Matthew Ingram has said “an API-based platform strategy is a gamble, just as erecting a paywall is. But one of those is a gamble aimed at profiting from the open exchange of information and other aspects of an online-media world, while the other is an attempt to create the kind of artificial information scarcity that newspapers used to enjoy.”

Other publications like The New York Times have experimented with publishing collections of high-quality writing as paid e-books.

Various software programmes and Internet browser add-ons have been developed to try and help users ‘bypass’ certain paywalls by tricking the restricted website. Some paywalls have been particularly easy to bypass, with The New York Times only closing a gap earlier this year that allowed users to access restricted content by simply deleting a part of the page's URL.

In an Irish context, major newspapers are not currently behind paywalls, although some magazines such as The Phoenix are. However, The Irish Times predicted that 2013 will herald “paywall time for the Irish newspapers left standing.”


Share this article


Read more about

News

Most Popular