Fairfax undecided on paywalls

By AdNews | 27 April 2011
 
Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood.

Fairfax Media is planning to invest in quality journalism to make up for the drop in classified ad revenue and has yet to decide on the use of paywalls for its websites, according to chief executive Greg Hywood.

Hywood told the Business Spectator last week that “you want a paywall that doesn’t impinge upon your ability to grow this market”.

“You don’t want to put a high paywall around something and shrink your market to nothing,” Hywood said.

“It’s better to leverage a large market into your digital transactions business. Now, there are emerging 'freemium' models and there are people who claim that various companies in this space can make a small percentage of heavy users pay, but not impinge upon your ability to grow that overall market.”

Asked if he would be removing the paywall for The Australian Financial Review online, Hywood said “we’ll be reviewing what works best”.

“It’s extremely important that the audience who’ve come to rely and respect on the AFR over the years can connect with that brand,” he said.

Hywood said to build sustainable models around its mastheads The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Fairfax will be investing in “quality content”.

“You have to absolutely focus on the journalism, invest in the journalism, and invest in quality content,” he said.

“The second thing is that you have to get your fixed cost base down around those to the degree that is possible because as we know, newspapers are very expensive to produce and distribute.”

Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au

Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.

comments powered by Disqus