As the money from Mail Online rolls in, what about those behind the paywall ?

[dipsydoodle]

Looking for an alternative to television-to-television Olympic coverage? Archery has its merits, no doubt, but it won't take long for traditional habits to reassert themselves. Which means there's a fair chance you've logged on to Mail Online. Seven clicks later, you remember to focus on the large screen on the other side of the room even though the canoe slalom heats are not quite as compelling as initially thought. Anyway, whatever the competition from broadcasters, Mail Online is the biggest newspaper website in the world. Comscore says 6.5 million unique visitors turn up daily, and as the parent company's trading statement last week showed, the money is beginning to roll in.

Viscount Rothermere's Daily Mail & General Trust reports results to year ending in September. Last year Mail Online generated a modest £16m. So far this year, growth is 69% – which would imply an outturn of £27m. The year after DMGT is aiming for £45m, which would amount to growth of another 40%, numbers it hopes to deliver by putting more hands on the keyboards in the US.

Elsewhere, or rather over here, the Guardian, the world's number three newspaper site with daily visitors of 3.1 million, is also showing revenue progress. Digital advertising revenues were £14.7m, ahead 26% in the year to March 31. That's not as fast as the Mail, perhaps, but solid enough – and the word from upstairs is that that rate of growth has continued into the current financial year.

Compare this, then, to those living behind a paywall. It can now be accepted that some titles have made subscriptions an unqualifed success: the Financial Times, which barely competes with the Mail or the BBC in the attention stakes, now has 301,471 digital subscribers according to its parent company Pearson. That is more than the FT's headline printed circulation of 297,225 – which includes 30,000 freebies. But about 45% of the FT's digital figure are corporate sales; some companies buy up to 100 individual licences for staff to keep up. Prices start at £295 per user per year; a nice business, but hardly a model for the rest of Fleet Street.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/29/mail-online-revenue-paywall

[tjwmason]

1. I don't see the pay-wall option being viable for mainstream papers

I can see why folk would pay to get access to the more specialised Financial Times, but why pay for access to The Times? Particularly when there's The Guardian, The Independent and the Torygraph all covering a similar area...and those are just from established 'real' newspapers.