Half of consumers are willing to pay for news

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published its annual Digital News Report last week, which reinforced many of the familiar challenges currently facing news publishers businesses. Among them: Interest in the news is declining and avoidance of news is increasing, “platform resets” are reshaping how news content is distributed and discovered, and a portion of consumers say they’re unwilling to pay for access to news content.

Headlines around the report centered largely around the last finding, noting that the majority (57%) of non-subscribers surveyed for the report across 20 markets said they would not consider paying anything for online news. “Only a minority of consumers are willing to pay,” the report stated. 

But placed in a different light, the findings from the survey tell a more encouraging story about publishers’ audience revenue prospects. For one, 17% of respondents said they already pay to access news, up from 10% in 2014. And 43% of respondents who don’t currently pay for news said they would be willing to. 

Taken together the data therefore suggest that 53% of overall respondents are willing to pay for access to news in some capacity, and imply that there’s ample room for growth for publishers that can figure out ways to attract and convert those audiences. This is also self-reported data, of course. What consumers say and what consumers do are very different things, and not wanting to pay for something doesn’t mean they won’t.

Publishers’ businesses continue to face significant ongoing challenges, and shortcomings in terms of product-market fit will make operating sustainably increasingly difficult for many publishers in the years ahead. However, it’s clear that the news publishers most likely to survive – and hopefully, thrive – are those that can focus their attention deliberately on the opportunities they do have rather than focusing on those they don’t.

The real question facing publishers is not whether or not consumers are willing to pay for content, but what type of content consumers are willing to pay for. That might mean smaller newsrooms, greater reliance on artificial intelligence and automation, and very different editorial strategies, but the notion that “only a minority of consumers are willing to pay” for news remains relatively unfounded.