The main problem for the ProJo, and other metropolitan papers weighing the idea, is one of expectations. Influenced in no small part by a newspaper industry that has heretofore given away its product, consumers expect the news to be free. And changing the rules at this late date could prove difficult.
A Boston Consulting Group survey of 5000 consumers in nine Western countries released last month found just 48 percent of regular Internet users in the United States willing to pay for the news online — tying Britain for last place in the poll. And that was the promising survey. A Forrester Research poll put the figure at 20 percent.
That's not to say that all media outfits will fail if they charge for online content. The Wall Street Journal and Britain's Financial Times have fared reasonably well on the Web, as have some trade papers. But these publications, as news industry analyst Ken Doctor notes, are specialized reads with little competition. "General newspapers, most of what they write about is written about by other people," says Doctor, author of the forthcoming book Newsonomics.
Indeed, if metro newspaper Web sites start asking readers for cash, local television and radio Web sites will undoubtedly sense an opportunity to pick up substantial traffic — and the advertising that goes with it. And newspaper companies, in turn, will have a harder time selling advertisers on Web sites with declining readership.
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