Daily BrewToronto Star joins other Canadian newspapers by embracing paywalls
The wall being built around Canadian newspapers on the Internet received a few more bricks this week with the announcement that the Toronto Star will soon charge for access to its content online.
The Star, Canada's most-read newspaper, will join the Globe and Mail and Postmedia News when it begins charging a subscription fee for unlimited online access sometime early next year.
According to publisher John Cruickshank, in a published note to readers:
This move will provide a new source of revenue for the Star that will help support our ability to provide readers of both our print and online editions with the best and most comprehensive package of news and information in Canada.
It is interesting to note that the term "paywall" is not used in Cruickshank's announcement. He did use it while discussing the Star's strategy in a news story two weeks earlier, however, so perhaps too much can't be read into it.
The Star is only the latest major Canadian daily to move to a pay-to-play system, with more likely to join in the coming years.
Let's do a quick tally.
The Globe's paywall went active earlier this month. Postmedia's Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province and Ottawa Citizen introduced their own earlier this year, joining the Montreal Gazette. The National Post only has a metered paywall for international readers, for now.
The Chronicle Herald in Halifax is also moving in that direction. The Hamilton Spectator already has one in place. Ditto the Brunswick News.
Quebecor, parent company of the Sun newspapers, is either doing a celebration dance or quietly preparing to join the crowd. A Financial Post piece from last year suggests it is the latter.
The New York Times has to receive some credit for the recent popularity of the paywall. It adopted the model in March 2011 and has since built its online subscriptions to well more than 500,000.
But that is the Times, which has, as the Digital Journal points out, a vast international audience Canadian papers will have difficulty tapping into.
According to the Wall Street Journal, which has a paywall system of its own, the newspaper industry has little choice but to put their faith in paywalls to increase revenues.
However, it acknowledged earlier this year that readers have plenty of places to find their news:
The challenge for all papers is that free content is still plentiful online. And many papers don't provide much motivation for new sign-ups. Most publishers are giving full online access to existing print subscribers, so the pool of potential new digital subscribers is relatively small.
Interestingly the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and several other U.S. newspapers have suspended their paywalls until the threat of Hurricane Sandy has cleared, Poynter.com reports.
A cynic could wonder if this is a gesture of goodwill under perilous circumstances or proof that stories that get high traffic volumes, as weather disaster coverage tends to receive, don't need a paywall to be profitable.
