A recent Insight we published for clients provides an analysis of study results released by the Nielsen Company last week. More fodder on consumers’ propensity to pay (or not) for paid media. Nielsen’s data echoes Forrester’s recent study and our own study of over 2,500 news consumers. The news isn’t good for anyone betting on consumers paying for content online. No surprise here: consumer willingness to spend online mirrors where they are willing to pay offline – movies, games, music, TV (cable). News and magazines come out in the middle, and stuff consumers are used to getting for free (social media, blogs) they show no propensity to pay for anytime soon. And why should they? They’ve been trained to receive content free or highly subsidized by advertising for decades, and the total amounts they spend aren’t great. What they spend is also tied to household budgets – what they have to spend – and that isn’t changing any time soon. So to assume there are scads of new dollars ready to be applied to paid content is simply naïve.

We aren’t surprised by the study results. We’re surprised that the media finds them surprising. We’ve been following the money flows of the information industry for 10+ years, and the bottom line is that the money that flows into consumer or business media is driven by their bottom lines. So rather than looking at business models as the next new thing, it’s time for publishers to pay more attention to serious product design, user engagement, and features that delight and differentiate – and build up a potentially lucrative loyal reader base in the process. Moving where the money comes from, while giving a true indication of what the product is worth (that’s one thing paid models are great for) isn’t the answer. It’s time for the industry to stop thinking it is.

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5 Responses to “The Paid Content Dilemma – Consumers in Charge”

1. Tod Delasancha wrote on 13 Apr 2010

   now see, this type of stuff simply doesn’t add up

2. Sylvain wrote on 14 Apr 2010

   Why do you put such a high price tag on your reports then? In the era of Google (and coming from a public school system) I’m not used to pay for information.

3. Elfrieda Bawcum wrote on 20 Apr 2010

   snappy little title, Hehe

4. Bessie Swinson wrote on 28 Apr 2010

   lolol where’s a dark beer whenever you want one

5. ochrona wrote on 28 Apr 2010

   Yes, that is true, I agree with you, but I am not sure if there are no other options.