Quebecor Inc.’s newspaper division announced that from December 4, 2012 their online visitors to the Calgary, Winnipeg Sun, Ottawa, Edmonton and Toronto websites will be greeted by a metered paywall. This means that the visitors will now have to pay money to view the content on this group’s websites.
This chain of groups has already introduced the same metered paywall in Journal de Quebec and Journal de Montreal back in September. Now as part of the latest move, the group will give complimentary subscription to their online subscribers. President and CEO of Sun Media, Pierre Karl Peladeau said the following regarding the decision, “Today marks another important milestone in Sun Media’s digital transformation and its commitment to delivering the quality and reliable journalism our readers expect and deserve”.
Now online subscribers to the Sun’s newspaper websites will have to pay 99 cents each month for the first three months to view the content followed by $5.99 for each month thereafter. This move does not mean that online visitors will be unable to find anything free of cost on these websites as limited free material will still be available.
Nonetheless, by paying a monthly fee, users will be able to access unlimited content including a maximum of 20 “premium” articles during each month without paying any charges, way in to checkout blogs, breaking news and the daily Sunshine Girl picture. As far as the premium content on Sun Media’s websites is concerned, it will comprise of local news in detail, live sports commentary, columnists, investigative reports and Sunshine Girl video.
Sun Media is not the only group that has taken this step, as there are many other newspapers in both US and Canada which are now using metered paywall systems and several others are gearing up to follow suit due to their declining advertising proceeds and circulations paired with rising expenses. This has also resulted in newspapers cutting their staff numbers due to monetary constraints.
Quebecor Inc. has also done the same, having already slashed 500 jobs in their Sun Media newspaper earlier this month. As a result of their decision, production facilities in Kingston and Ottawa have closed down. In this way, Sun Media has slashed their 10 percent work force and shrunk their annual spending by $45 million.
However, it remains to be seen whether this plan works well for newspapers. As more and more newspapers are lining up to adapt metered paywall platforms, the question that still lingers is whether readers are ready to accept this new model of media, especially when such a plan had already flopped in Canada.
Source: OBJ
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