I got a lot of emails yesterday wondering about my reaction to the Star-Advertisers announcement of their new paywall for digital content.
Well, here’s one prediction: There are going to be some unhappy local folks when they figure out that they are being asked to pay as much as twelve times more than mainlanders for the same digital subscriptions.
Yup. The S-A is quoting $9.95 a month for digital-only subscriptions for Hawaii residents, but enter a mainland zip code and discover an unadvertised price break that drops the cost to $1.95 a month or $10 for the year.
No wonder the newspaper’s announcement yesterday sounded a little defensive. The long editorial column announcing the move didn’t have any of the relevant details, like prices and a clear explanation of what is included in the “premium content” that is becoming “subscription only”.
And I noticed that comments were turned off, so readers couldn’t sound off on the announcement.
That doesn’t signal a whole lot of confidence, or so it seems to me.
So, a day later, there’s more information.
Full access, including the print and digital editions: $19.95 a month (presumably $239.40 per year, unless there’s an annual price break). I don’t know if I would call this the “best value,” as the S-A advertising proclaims.
$9.95 a month for a digital-only subscription for Hawaii subscribers
$50 a year “special” price for new local digital-only suscribers
$1.95 per month or $10 a year for a digital subscription for mainland subscribers
Unfortunately, the “free with your subscription to the paper” idea doesn’t work, because I’m sure few subscribers are paying that premium $240 a year price, with all of the “specials” that have floated around.
Here’s the list of what readers will continue to get for free.
• Breaking News
• Website Front Page
• Weather
• AP Sports
• Section Fronts – Sports, Business, News, Editorial, Feature, Weather
• Event Calendars
• Honolulu Pulse – including tgif
• Photo Galleries
• Blogs
• Classifieds
• Travel
• Obituaries
• Traffic
• Breaking News app for your mobile device
Hmmmm. I think $50 per year isn’t unreasonable. But I’m not sure there’s enough “premium” content to sustain the higher rates. I suppose we’ll soon see.
Oh, one more thing. In order to subscribe, you will have to actively agree to their “terms of service.” I suppose that’s more honest than hiding them in a footnote that browsers are presumed to have read and agreed to.
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I don’t expect people to be happy with the paywall, and gripes are inevitable. However, I can see how they don’t want those comments on their own platform.
If I walk into Burger King and start telling everyone how much they suck and to go to Jack in the Box instead I’m sure they would escort me out. Same thing with their comments I guess. That’s not public property, and if they want to shoo people away that are scaring off the customers then that’s their right. You can make your feelings known in a variety of ways. That’s your right and it seems you have found a safe venue to do so.
People are going to get their news for free from different sources? That’s fine. Seems to me that their breaking news is still going to be free and that’s the same content that could be found from other news sources anyway. But it is silly to think that ALL the content SHOULD be free. What a sense of entitlement! Ok I’ll go to a Mercedez dealer and demand a free car. Not gonna happen, right?
For the record, I’d rather have an In N Out over Burger Kind and Jack in the Box any day.
We’re talking about the dying Fourth Estate of genuine journalism here, not about hamburgers.
Give yourself, and the public who used to rely on you, some more respect. Take these comments more seriously, which good reporters usually do.
Otherwise, you are bringing much of this disrespect onto yourself. More Americans are walking away into a future of a less-informed Democracy. You can’t shift all the blame for this, no matter how hard you try.
You must be mistaken, since I am not a reporter or in any way a representative of the Staradvertiser. I am a consumer like everybody else. I know it seems impossible that anyone NOT working at the paper could be defending them at this point – but the issue here is the expectation of getting something for nothing, a model that I suspect will be phased out as companies’ business ideologies catch up with the technical reality of the times.
Ian, did you notice that Civil Beat has subtly changed its layout?
There is a sports, business and entertainment section of Civil Beat which I only noticed today, although it might have been there for a while or always, for all I know.
Likewise, the Media section has been lowered to the bottom right of the layout, replaced by Breaking News that include international events.
I might have missed all this earlier, but it seems to be to be brand new and unannounced to the public.
If this is brand new, then in regards to the Star Advertiser … this means war!
If Civil Beat does engage in some advertising to supplement its expansion, then that would mean the beginning of the end for the SA’s hegemony (the SA no longer has a monopoly on news, it is merely dominant now that CB has expanded its focus).
Ian, please explore this, it’s a hot topic!
It is a huge mistake for the SA to charge for content. They are not the New York Times, I’m sorry. This is good though because it will encourage alternatives to the drivel we’ve been stuck with. the CB should have gone under too, but it is bankrolled by Oahu’s richest man, so it can keep going indefinitely.