Would you run through a wall for AL.com?
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In my mind there were only two mysteries of the world: How was Stonehenge built and why doesn’t AL.com have a website paywall?
We’re down to one now.
The popular site – AL.com, not Stonehenge! – has added a “soft” paywall, meaning a number of free clicks but eventually blocked access to anything more without buying a subscription.
As the journalism business struggles to find reliable ways to make money, paywalls are becoming more common. There is still plenty of free stuff out there, mostly from nonprofit news sites and TV/radio news sites, but more than 75% of sites belonging to newspapers or news magazines have a paywall of some kind. CNN.com added a soft paywall in October. AL.com added its in late February.
The business drawback of paywalls is that a lot of people, spoiled by the many years that newsrooms put their work online for free, don’t want to pay for news, or they can’t afford it. Subscription access almost inevitably leads to fewer page views, which is a crusher for digital advertising revenue.
But ad revenue has been a bust for most online news publishers, giving rise to the spread of digital subscriptions.
AL.COM’S POPUP PAYWALL MESSAGE. (THIS IS A SCREENSHOT; YOU CAN’T ACTUALLY CLICK IT TO SUBSCRIBE.)
AL.com has sought direct reader revenue before. It sold “memberships” that offered perks such as interactivity with AL.com staff (and a water bottle!). Then Alabama Media Group, which no longer prints newspapers, created paid digital editions for Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile that are delivered by email or available by app. But while other sites owned by Advance Local around the country began requiring payments for access to some site and app stories, AL.com did not, until now.
Natalie Pruitt, president of AMG*, wrote in an email: “Ad revenue alone isn’t enough in an all-digital world. … We all aim to find sustainable revenue models that allow us to continue to serve our readers.”
The mechanics of the new paywall matter. AL.com producers can choose certain high-profile stories to place behind the wall to entice site visitors, who can still see the headlines, to pay for a subscription. But based on my experiences and those of friends, AL.com has chosen not to wall off very many news stories so far. While signed out of my account, I tested what I think is some of AL.com’s best work – John Archibald’s columns, Ivana Hrynkiw’s state parole board stories and Rebecca Griesbach’s education stories. I had free access to all. “Most stories remain available on AL.com,” Pruitt said.
That’s commendable. I’ll never knock news companies for trying to make the money they need to survive, but the more journalism they can offer for free, the greater the number of informed citizens.
There’s a second dimension to the AL.com paywall. After access to a certain number of free articles, the paywall kicks in for everything else. No editor selection involved. What’s interesting is, the number of free articles varies depending on your behavior. Web analytics programs these days know how many times you visited previously (and what you clicked on). Frequent visitors hit the paywall sooner because the high frequency suggests they like what they’re reading and they’re the most likely kind of visitor to be willing to pay.
THE KEY QUESTION IS, HOW GOOD ARE THOSE FREE ALTERNATIVES? AND DO READERS CARE?
This is known as a “dynamic” paywall and it’s common in the digital journalism industry, even if it’s new at AL.com. “We are excited to be testing software to help us find the people who value local news, who want to support journalism,” Pruitt said. The paywall software seems nicely lenient. A friend of mine eventually hit the wall, but despite trying, I have yet to do so. A subscription costs $10 per month for unlimited access to all content on AL.com. There’s also a 24-hour pass for $5.
Raise your hand if paywalls on news websites annoy you. That’s what I thought. But they can produce revenue that news companies will – maybe – reinvest in their journalism. Selling subscriptions when a lot of free stuff is out there — some of it good, some of it awful — ratchets up the need to publish work that is relevant, distinctive and valuable. Because companies want to drive you through the wall, not up one.
*Disclosure: My former employer