via paidcontent.org
Guardian Media Group CEO Carolyn McCall says paid content may work, according to the FT, as reported by paidcontent.org.
McCall echoes Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's recent proclamations that a broad paywall can never work at the Guardian -- but adds that they have considered charging for certain high-value, niche content.
This is encouraging to hear, as there's been so much focus on the concept of a paywall that one could only wonder whether any consideration was being given to areas where a paid model might work.
No one who understands newspapers well would argue that a solid paywall around all of a newspaper's content would make sense -- which is why it's frustrating and perplexing to see so much energy still expended arguing against the concept. We don't know of any newspapers actually doing this anyway.
But there's plenty of evidence that people will pay for content that is unique, high quality, timely, actionable and valuable to a given niche or special interest. Certainly a newspaper like the Guardian, with its solid editorial staff, is capable of creating such content.
The worry is that with financial losses so great at the Guardian and elsewhere, staff cutbacks may gradually render newspapers less and less capable of creating the kinds of content that people will pay for. Their challenge is to innovate before slashing and burning.
Of course, if great journalists do get cut, we can count on many of them using their own redundancies as an impetus to finally go out and start the kinds of online content endeavors that will leverage their talents effectively and make money in the process. They'll be able to do this without all of the costly overhead carried by a typical newspaper.
So newspapers need to get on with it. They can argue against paywalls all they want, but they ought to start figuring out where paid content can work for them so that they can add this to their arsenal of tools to deploy to reverse losses and generate profits.
