Bouncing off the Paywall – Understanding Misalignments Between Local Newspaper Value Propositions and Audience Responses

ABSTRACT

Declining advertising revenue and print copy sales have propelled extensive paywall experiments in local newspapers to generate new revenue and fund local journalism. The success of these experiments is ultimately depending on whether or not they deliver the value that customers require. This article studies local newspapers’ potential to build successful paywalls by conducting a two-sided analysis of paywall value propositions and local news audiences’ responses to these value propositions. Drawing on mixed methods – in-depth interviews with 20 newspaper managers and a national survey (N = 1586) among local newspaper audiences – our study identifies a major gap between intended value of paywalls and customer value perception and behavior. These are misalignments between the intended attractiveness of paywalled content and audience attitude toward this content, and misalignments between access to paywalled content and use. Local newspapers’ offerings are particularly misaligned with younger, lower income and lower news interest customers. When these groups hit a paywall, they most likely bounce off.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway (project number 247602) as part of The Programme on the Culture and Media Sector (KULMEDIA) and by the Norwegian Media Autority (RAM) for the project “lokalaviser og annonser bak betalingsmur” [Local newspapers and ads behind the paywalls] under grant 14/940-2/JEA.