•Group Members

•Abhishek Chaudhary - 190103202

•Ajay Bhatia - 190103018
The New York •Ashish Sandapu - 190103191
Times Paywall •Dipesh Kriplani - 190103196
Group – 9 •Parth Singh - 190201068
•Rajat Dewan - 190103203
•Siddhant Yadav - 190201105
 • Company reported, 390,000 new subscribers in Feb 2012, which grew
to 3.4 Million digital subscriptions in 2019
• The total revenue went from $1555 million in 2011 to $1579 million in
Is the Paywall 2015 to $1812 million in 2019
Working? • However the revenue from advertising kept declining over the years
• The print subscriptions were declining while the digital subscriptions
were increasing
• Increase in revenue = Increase in digital subscription + Increase in
price for print subscription – Reduction in number of print subscription
 Revenue Breakdown
Overall
(in millions) 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
Circulation 1084 1043 1008 880 845 837 824 795 705
Advertising 531 558 559 581 639 662 667 712 756
Other 197 148 109 84 95 90 86 88 93
Total 1812 1749 1676 1556 1580 1588 1577 1596 1555

Is the Paywall Subscription

Working? (in millions) 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011
Print 624 642 668 647 646 664 675 683
Digital
News
Product 426 379 326 224 193 170 149 112 44.3
Other
Products 34 22 14 9 6 3
Total 1084 1043 1008 880 845 837 824 795 705

• The advertising revenue has been declining

• Hence the only revenue driver was the paid digital subscription models
or the paywall
Comparison -
TimesSelect
• Yes, the current paywall was better
designed than the previous two
experiments
• The TimesSelect paywall didn’t give the
occasional user any incentive to be at the
website
• Also the columnist felt that their reach is
decreasing
• Due to the rise of social media and high
quality blogs, available for free to the
users, the value of TimesSelect was
questioned
Opaque vs Leaky Paywall

• The 20 articles per month limit didn’t drive

away the free readers traffic, which was
used to woo-in advertisers
• Also it created buzz around the interesting
articles on social media, and resulted in
many readers into paid subscribers
• The NY Times has around 4 million digital
subscribers today compared to the 1.5
million of The Wall Street Journal

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/04/media/newyorktimes-raises-subscription-
price/index.html
 • With the advent of Digital Media, information and news became easily
Challenges Faced by the accessible

Newspaper Industry • Rise of websites like Jobs.com and Craigslist eating up their revenue
• Most of the costs associated with the
industry were fixed and had little room for
reduction
• The industry was highly fragmented with
over 5000 players ( 2009)
• Top 50 firms accounted for over 75% of the
revenue
• Advent of devices like I-Pad which provided
an experience similar to reading a
newspaper
 Create additional
revenue from loyal
customer base

Increase engagement
through social media

Goal of
The combination of
Metered System with
device- specific Paywall
system ensured:

creating the 5 free articles/day

Paywall
20 free articles/ month

Thus, curbing the

downfall in traffic on
the website in contrast
Providing their print subscribers an added
to the all-or-nothing
model incentive to continue
 • The Print subscription fell from 2007-2011
while the paid Digital subscription to
online content increased
• The digital evolution has changed the
global media environment and The Times
actively innovating to attract and retain
readers
• The arrival of smartphones, tablets (iPad),
Transition from and companies as Amazon and Netflix are
Print to Digital making things easier for the New York
Times

• Positive growth in subscriber base

(390000 paid subscribers in Feb 2012)
• 70% paid subscribers registered for
digital access, However potential drop in
advertising revenue (Online ad revenue
is very much less than Print)
Is Paywall a good Provide a regular Revenue
strategy for Stream
Newspapers? Publisher incentive for a
Higher Quality Content
Helps build loyalty
Improves consumer
perception to the content as
better quality
Must always offer unique
and quality content
Tough competition with free
news websites
Decreased advertising
revenue
Affects SEO
High costs to maintain the
security of Paywall
 • Depends on the main revenue stream of
the newspaper company
Is Paywall a good
strategy for • Picking the right paywall strategy,
Newspapers? Metered and exclusive paywall fares better
than “all or nothing” model

• Understanding the consumer base

THANK YOU