So How Many Paying Subscribers Can You Get?

Here are some interesting numbers on what happens when you charge for content. 

Wes Jackson, VP of Sales at Belo Interactive, noted that Belo made a mistake last year in trying to impose a $9.95 fee on its popular Dallas Cowboys e-newsletter. "We went from a registered base of 98,000 to 800," he said. Even though Belo was eventually able to grow circulation to 1,500, those revenues amounted to just a fraction of a single advertiser's value with a broader reader base. Belo's future is better assured by building up a solid base of registered users that will accept targeted, opt-in advertising, he said.

Elaine Zinngrade, Assistant General Manager at LATimes.com, noted the exceptionally slow growth of its NewsDirect product, a $64.95 a year "push" product based on the old Pointcast architecture, combined with email and screenphone alerts. Just 250 customers have converted to the pay model out of 5,225 takers of a free, 7-day trial, she noted. One challenge: the paper needed to set prices relatively high in order to meet ABC rules that subscribers need to pay at least 25 percent of print costs in order to be counted for advertising purposes. That effort's going to shot anyway as LAT raises its cover price next month, she muses. [_Go_]

If these numbers are indicative of the norm when you charge for content then it does makes you realize that advertising instead of subscription fees are the way to go.  And that is something that the New York times endorsed this week when they added large format ads.  Of course I still wonder if anyone pays any attention to advertising at all -- whether online or offline but that's another issue.