The Corkman website has from today become a pay-per-view site. They are to charge for content per article / per week / per month. This will probably mean that we won’t be pointing you to articles of interest on the Corkman website, so both millstreet.ie and the Corkman will be worse off for this change in business strategy.
It has become a challenge in these recessionary times where newspapers are seeing their readership fall, seeing their revenues from advertisments fall. In the case of the Corkman however it seems that the pressure is coming from its parent company Independant Newspapers who are in lots of financial pressure, and as normal it’s the little guy that is expected to bail them out with increased charges etc.
Regardless, charging for online newspapers just doesn’t work and has been proved so many times in the two decades. Below are the results of a study done recently, which is really just rehashing research done over the last few years:
from cNet News
Pay per view? Who do they think they are? The New York Times?