Unless you’re one of NZME’s 100,000 home-delivered newspaper subscribers, you would have been confronted with an unusual ultimatum… Pay-up or click out.
What happened? Tuesday 30th saw the introduction of New Zealand’s first PREMIUM subscription launched with zero fanfare. So, unfortunately, if you wanted to read something else on NZ Herald, 7 out of 10 homepage articles will have offered the same decision over the last few days.
This new approach was switched on during Monday night and was as much a test to ensure functionality as it was a means to ensure secrecy. This is why NZME have shared little information on forecast expectations to allow us to offer our point of view.
The move for NZ Herald to follow international news brands and offer a premium content paywall solution makes sound business sense if it resonates with readers. Using a digital paywall to get revenue from readers of the Herald is the main avenue open to them currently for ongoing sustainability and journalistic support, as they have been knocked back multiple times regarding merging to build scale and efficiency.
There have been critical observers within the office who question the value exchange and whether the Herald really offers premium journalist content, however, the answer to that question will be left to the nation to decide. And we will be monitoring the traffic to the site and others such as Stuff to see which way the nation is swinging.
What we’ve been told so far, is that following 48hrs behind the paywall subscription response rates were ‘well above’ expectations and that the publicised 10,000 subscription target was now being revised upward. It was also referenced that long-term (12month) subscriptions were being selected at a pleasing ratio, again offering reassurance this was the right move for their future sustainability.
Key points to note regarding the paywall
- While the current volume of Premium stories on the homepage are a significant majority (70%) this is by design to drive subscription volume. This will reduce in the coming week(s) to a balance of approx. 50% of the stories in this section.
- NZME subscription targets are set to appeal to specific business audiences and sectors where specialist analysis and opinion is of significance and those audiences will find value in subscribing. These are articles such as; specialist business, politics, crafted opinion pieces (eg: Mike Hosking’s fortnightly column) and NZH exclusive lifestyle interviews, etc. This will not affect breaking NZ or international news, traffic accidents, celebrity weddings or sports headlines. These stories appeal to the masses, drive huge unique browsers (UB) & impressions and remain crucial to the balance of the site.
- NZ Herald will measure the success of the project by closing 2019 maintaining +1m UBs per day with +10k subscriptions.
- The cost of $5 per week for digital access was heavily scrutinized when compared with other local and international content subscriptions. However the delivery subscription of the physical paper was a key factor in arriving at the weekly $5 digital value, for example, the weekend papers and digital content can now subscribe to for $9.20.
- Premium subscribers will have access to 20-30% more content. Most of these additional articles will be sourced from international partners who have their own paywall such as Financial Times, NY Times, Huffington Post, etc. Don’t worry the Daily Mail content will remain free content, perhaps not passing the journalistic quality bar…
- If you’re an APP user you currently don’t have access to Premium content – this is a function of an old app platform.
- Expect NZ Herald’s marketing campaign to launch in the coming days.
Expected impact on audience and advertisers
NZME expectations are to maintain 1m daily Unique Users per day (currently this has dipped) which means audience volume and costs should not impact adverting partners.
- Premium subscribers will still be served advertising, and targeting filters will be able to identify and reach these audiences exclusively.
- Premium subscribers demonstrate a high affinity with the content and will spend more time reading and less likely to bounce from an article. Offering longer advertising view times with potential for greater impact.
Therefore from our point of view, we welcome the confidence they have shown. NZ media is a small industry amongst increasingly global players and diversity in publishers and content they offer to benefit the market, audience and ultimately deliver for our clients needs. This decision creates a turning point for the local industry we can only expect for further ‘user pays’ niche content opportunities to present themselves and the audiences they appeal to.
All as long as the audiences continue to be present and engaged.
