It was for years a key dilemma of the media industry: Whether news websites can be sustained through advertising alone, or whether readers must be forced to pay up. A further sign that the latter model is taking hold comes today, as the Bloomberg news service starts charging for access to its redesigned website.
John Micklethwait, editor in chief at Bloomberg, told Arab News that the subscription model is the “way to go” and that he expects the Middle East — where paywalls have been slow to take off — to be a “big area” for attracting paying readers. Under its new subscription model, the media company founded by Michael R. Bloomberg will charge readers up to $39.99 per month for full access to Bloomberg.com, with all users allowed to read 10 free articles a month.
It comes after a raft of big-name media brands have started to explore subscription models instead of trying to eke out existences through advertising, in a tough market dominated by Facebook and Google.
The New York Times and Washington Post have each pulled in more paying customers, with the former in February reporting overall subscription revenue had risen to more than $1 billion, including 2.6 million digital-only subscriptions.
Other publications that have paywalls or metered subscriptions include Vanity Fair, The Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and Wired. Micklethwait, talking to Arab News at Bloomberg’s new European headquarters in London, described how the media company thinks paywalls are built to last.
Tell us about the new Bloomberg website
The way were trying to do it is produce a cleaner, more business-like (website similar to that of) a daily newspaper. We want this to be something that people come back to daily, and think about that way. And we’re showcasing slightly more of the serious stuff that we do, so you end up with more economics, more opinion … things that we think people will pay to get.
Do you think the debate over whether news organizations should put up paywalls, or rely purely on advertising, has been answered?
It was a debate that people originally stereotyped as between people who wanted just to pay, and people who wanted advertising. And then quite quickly, metering (access) became, for most people, the sensible route to go down … I think among the quality media, it would be very hard to deny that there has been a consolidation around that.
Is this something you are just testing out, or are you sure it is the way forward?
My instinct is that this subscription business, on the consumer side, is the way to go ahead and make the most amount of money out of the content we have. But we’ll see: If it had some effect on the other parts of our business which are doing so well then we would reconsider.
Paywalls in the Arab world have been slow to take off. How do you see your new website being received in this part of the world?
There is no shortage of people who are interested in finance, business and tech in the Arab world. In terms of paying for it, there are many wealthy countries … and (the subscription charge) is not a lot. In the end, what we are saying to people is that “you can get what we think is the best business and finance journalism around the world for the price of a cappuccino a week.”
Other news services such as Reuters have a strong financial slant — why would someone pay to read Bloomberg instead of one of your competitors?
We think we have good business, finance and tech journalism and people in the end will pay more for quality.
How will Bloomberg cover the IPO of Saudi Aramco?
We are covering it in every single way. (When Aramco announces its global listing) that will be something at which we will probably throw more people than any other news organization on the planet.
Do you have anything to say about levels of corporate transparency in a market like Saudi Arabia?
As bigger companies get listed, there will be more transparency and there would be more room for journalism. Many of the world’s biggest investors come from the (Arab world) and they get levels of transparency in companies when they buy a share in Citibank, say. If people buy football clubs (in the UK) they get a degree of transparency which they don’t automatically get back in Arabia.
