Paper pounds, digital pennies and The Sun’s great gamble

It’s pretty much taken for granted now that what used to be known as “newspapers” are expected to be cross-channel “newsbrands”, with their online presence at least matching the traditional, tangible one. The problem is that unless you’re one of the biggest players on the Web, you’re more than likely to see your ad revenue drop rapidly when your readership moves online. So, what’s a newsbrand to do? The Sun recently decided to go all in.

According to The Guardian, from 1 August  The Sun will be rolling out a £2-per-week paywall. The controversial move follows a £30 million deal for exclusive internet and mobile Premier League highlights clips the publisher struck in January. Now, with internet’s prevailing “anything, anytime, for free” attitude towards content, raising a paywall means sailing notoriously treacherous waters even for quality titles, whose readerships are typically both more loyal and more affluent. For a tabloid to do so seems borderline reckless.
Is it really, though? The global rise of Guardian and Daily Mail, two poster children for “post-print” success (and identity crisis at the same time, but that’s a whole different story), cannot possibly be matched by every single UK newsbrand. For those late to the table, ISBA’s Bob Wootton’s words about ad revenue “paper pounds” being replaced by “digital pennies” ring painfully true. The only other way to harness online, he argues, is to secure exclusive, valuable, easily accessible content and charge for it. And as we’re regularly reminded, most recently by BT Sport's marketing offensive, the one kind of exclusive content to rule them all (and lure them all) is football.
It will be interesting to see how the move pays off for The Sun. Especially so for their tabloid competitors, who I’m sure won’t go anywhere near a paywall in the foreseeable future, who will be more than happy to pick up any readers who don’t make it through The Sun’s wall. It is also naïve to expect The Sun to only rely on footie highlights. Prepare for snazzy overhauls and heavy marketing pushes over the summer. Daily Mail’s premium content experiment will probably be watched very closely too, as any knowledge of what else online/mobile audiences are willing to pay for will be gold. Interesting times ahead.

Written by Adam Wika, Media Assistant