Survey finds that only a fraction of web users would pay for online news content

A survey released earlier this week further called into question the case for pay-for access to news sites. The survey, commissioned by Harris Interactive, found that just 5% of those polled would pay to continue reading their favourite news site. It should be noted that the survey specifically referred to the site already being to the user’s preference – one would imagine that this figure would drop significantly where itinerant users are concerned.

As Mike Masnick over at techdirt notes, 5% is actually, relatively speaking, quite high – there are plenty of organisations vying for market share amongst a worldwide audience below 83 million. It should also be noted that this figure falls nicely in line with Chris Anderson’s calculation that just 5% of customers would need to subscribe to a service to make a typical freemium model worthwhile. The figure is, however, significantly lower than the (always somewhat ambitious) 10-15% of users lawyer-cum-saviour-of-journalism Steven Brill recently discussed as feasible.

Another interesting point to note is that the vast majority (74%) of those polled would “find another free site”, which is fine in the current climate in which users can cherry-pick from a wealth of exceptional free sites, but what of a future where all reliable/readable news sources operate on a subscription model? An unlikely proposition I know but – unless online publishers can firm up an often shaky relationship with advertising revenue streams – maybe a necessary one, as Harris’ ironically named Andrew Freeman notes; “As long as free alternatives exist, consumers will turn to them for their daily news information”.

Other findings of the survey include the fact that, unsurprisingly, ABC1s are more likely to pay to continue reading than C2DEs and, interestingly, that those aged between 16 and 24 are 7-12% more likely than any other age group to sign up to paid-for content. Ironically enough, however, Metrica’s UK Pulse data shows that young adults favour the BBC website as their source for news (63% prefer the site, against 51% of the UK audience overall) which, survey findings aside, found an excellent source of funding some time ago.

Online news websites most read by young adults by highest variation from UK national average

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