Persona-research
FILE NOTES FRED SMITH FORUM TUESDAY APRIL 26, 2011
Mike Jenner, Houston Hart Chair, University of Missouri School of Journalism, talks about research on “The Push to be Paid: Attitudes of publishers toward paid content.” The research was developed by Jenner (jennerm@missouri.edu) and Ken Fleming, Ph.D., RJI, (flemingk@missouri.edu)
In a post-presentation discussion, Ken Fleming tells me that the research showed that publishers who have put up pay walls or have mobile applications who are most confident about the future.
The research at Mizzou went to the field, asked for expectations about print-to-digital, charging for content, and what to do about mobile
Building a samle of all 1,390 U.S. dailies, did 301 phone interviews with daily newspaper publishers, there was a 78 percent response rate and it was field April 1-18, 2011.
Same skewed toward smaller papers –
· 77% were under 25,000 circulation · 18% independent · 57% private · rest in publicly traded
Baseline findings – 80% to 90% of revenue still from print. Publishers expect it wll go to between 60% to 80% print in three years. In other words, most only get between 5% and 15% of their revenues from digital and in three years the predict the spread will be larger but will flatten into the 5% to 29% range. They get perhaps 10% from niche products and it won’t change much, they predict, in three years.
As to mobile phones, 62% of newspapers with circulation of 25,000 or more have a mobile app and 21% of those below 30% have a mobile app. In the next 12 months, 59% of newspapers that don’t have a mobile phone app plan to offer one and 35% of them plan to charge.
People with mobile apps have great confidence in their ability to move revenue form print to digital. That was the best predictor of confidence in the future of digital.
Fewer than 2 in 10 newspapers are offering tablet apps. In the next 12 months, 48% of the newspapers that don’t offer a tablet app plan to ofer one and half plan to charge for it.
In the survey, four out of 10 newspapers are now charging for some online content – not necessarily the full web, but perhaps a niche digital product. “It shows that the numbers really have grown here really in terms of newspapers – they are charging for some form of content and the smaller newspapers are leading the charge.”
A quarter of newspapers with circulation over 25,000 are charging for some form of content. Of newspapers charging online :
· 15% metered approach · 30% charging all users · 54% have bundled the access for subscribers or offered as a subscription with a separate charge for online users.
Now only 15% of the newspapers survey said they have no plan to charge.
Two thirds believe audiences will pay. Only 14% said they didn’t believe they will ever be able to get the public to pay for online content.
In the next 12 months, one third-think revenue will count for 20% of digital revenue.
One in 10 expect content revenue to be greater than 20% of digital.
Effect on print circulation:
6 in 10 see no effect.
Effect on page views:
· 38% think paid content model will reduce views by 20% · One third don’t expect much impact
Papers aren’t waiting for NYTimes results, small papers leading the pway, they are finally expecting a shift, and they don’t expect anything negative to revenue.
