Mobile Computing News

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A hugely significant KPMG survey has somewhat conclusively confirmed what we have long known – people are not prepared to pay for web content. More specifically, Brits, more than other nations, are particularly in opposition to the idea. This may give some indication as to how successful pay walls for news sites will actually be.

Four out of five say no way

The KPMG survey, which had 5,627 respondents from 22 different countries, found UK citizens the most unwillingly to pass over their hard-earned pounds for news content. Of the Brits quizzed, 81 per cent said they would not shell over money for web content.

What were the findings?

Speaking to The Telegraph, Tudor Aw, who heads up technology at KPMG Europe, explained that: ‘UK consumers still haven’t come around to the idea of paying for digital content and are clear that they will move to other sites if pay walls are put up.’

He went on to explain that customers have, however, become receptive to the necessity of advertising models and in allowing sites to track their user profiles (presumably for hyper-specific ad targeting). But what Mr. Aw did not explain is that the average cost advertisers pay per impression has dropped notably in recent years, and that most newspapers cannot sell out their advertising capacity, making a certain percentage of these ‘free viewers’ worth nothing to the news publications.

Times paywall under the spotlight

This KPMG finding and Mr. Aw’s assertion is of great significance to the global newspaper industry, and more specifically Great Britain, with Rupert Murdoch’s Times Online recently going behind a pay wall. As an immediate effect, the publication has seen what all know to be a massive drop off in subscriber numbers, but what the media industry waits with baited breath to see is whether revenue is greater as a result of the paid subscribers.

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It’s the newspaper business making the switch from its reliance on impressions and advertising to subscription and charging users. This has worked for highly targeted financial publications like the WSJ, but whether it will work for a generalist site like Times Online remains to be seen.

Focus on delivery platforms, not content monetisation

Some publications have attempted to mitigate the challenges of online monetisation by introducing different delivery methods to new platforms. Dedicated magazine apps have propped up all over the iPad, for example, with some companies heralding their existence as a major success since they charge users for the app and the service. How is the iPad, or any tablet or eBook delivery platform different from the web? Well, firstly, it isn’t really – the content you get is often times identical, but it’s that tablets can ‘simulate’ the magazine and newspaper ‘feel’ that make people feel comfortable dealing with the ‘mobile’ pay walls.

Whether this trend continues remains to be seen, but the great pay wall experiment lead by Times Online is in full swing, and there’s not a soul in the media world not anxious to see how it will pan out.