Paywalls and the demand for news

Author(s)
Chiou, Lesley; Tucker, Catherine Elizabeth
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Abstract
Given the preponderance of free content on the Internet, news media organizations face new challenges over how to manage access to and the pricing of their content. It is unclear whether content should be free or whether customers should pay via a “paywall.” We use experimental variation from a media publisher’s field test of paywalls to examine demand for online news across several local media markets. We find a 51% drop in visits after the introduction of a paywall and a far larger drop for younger readers.
Date issued
2013-04
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110528
Department
Sloan School of Management
Journal
Information Economics and Policy
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Chiou, Lesley and Tucker, Catherine. “Paywalls and the Demand for News.” Information Economics and Policy 25, 2 (June 2013): 61–69 © 2013 Elsevier B.V.
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
0167-6245
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