The News of the World has followed News Corp stablemate The Times behind a paywall, with access to the site now costing £1 for 24 hours or £1.99 for four weeks. Steve Elsham, head of media at SAS UK looks at how newspapers can do more with digital media and their reader data.
There is no doubt that the prevalence of online news and rapid rise of social networking sites is changing the way the public consumes and interacts with media outlets.
As the News of the World follows its News International stable mates behind a paywall, we are reminded that traditional revenue models are being severely threatened.
It’s true that media companies need to innovate if they want to keep audiences engaged and continue to attract advertising.
But simply counting the number of unique visitors to a site and newspapers sales is not enough to persuade and give confidence to advertisers that their messages are reaching the right people.
Media companies need to dig deeper by leveraging the information they hold on subscribers and use it to shape investment models to determine the best way to adapt in a rapidly evolving market.
Only through accurate customer insight can broadcasters and publishers make the right decisions about what to focus their efforts on, be it online, print or video, or working with content creators and providers, to reach customers in a relevant way.
It will be interesting to see if News of the World can leverage the extra customer data they could gain from online subscriptions into advertising revenue.
By Steve Elsham
Head of media
SAS UK
www.sas.com/uk
