Friday, December 07, 2012

Washington Post to begin online paywall in mid-2013


The Washington Post plans to introduce a paywall, which will require users to pay to view more than section fronts on the paper’s online web site, by mid-2013. Individual stories would not be available outside the paywall.

The Post is losing circulation faster than the industry average. In 2009 the Post had 582,844 subscribers, ranking it behind only USA Today, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Los Angeles Times in circulation.

The New York Times has a paywall which print subscribers can access without additional charge, but the Times can be printed around the country. The Post doesn’t have that capability to offer an online/print package even though 90% of its online audience lives beyond its metropolitan area.

More than 360 newspapers are expected to charge for online use of  content by the end of the year. Paywalls affect about one-third of newspaper readers.

The Post has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes, the most famous being by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon to resign.


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