Comments on: Web mogul swallows Variety for $25 million: lessons for publishers http://paidcontent.org/2012/10/09/web-mogul-swallows-variety-for-25-million-lessons-for-publishers/ The economics of digital content Sat, 25 May 2013 21:53:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Jeff John Roberts http://paidcontent.org/2012/10/09/web-mogul-swallows-variety-for-25-million-lessons-for-publishers/#comment-162078 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:57:36 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=218844#comment-162078 Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Trevor. You’re right that Variety’s difficulties lie in part from trying to have it both ways — print advertising and digital subscriptions. I didn’t mean to suggest that there is no room for paywalls. Rather, I think the lesson is that they will work only for a few outlier categories like high prestige news brands (NYT) or, possibly, some types of local. In mass interest categories like sports and entertainment, however, news is just too commoditized for paywalls to be viable.

]]> By: trevorlkaufman http://paidcontent.org/2012/10/09/web-mogul-swallows-variety-for-25-million-lessons-for-publishers/#comment-162018 Wed, 10 Oct 2012 11:37:30 +0000 http://paidcontent.org/?p=218844#comment-162018 The comments in here about the efficacy of paywalls don’t take Variety’s particular tactics into account. Conversely, if a publication didn’t get enough advertising, would you say that the lesson for publishers was that advertising doesn’t work?

Variety charged a very high premium for their online subscription, in an effort to not cannibalize their print revenue. They also offered no newsstand-style day pricing, nor did they offer the ability to let their users subscribe only to the sections they cared about. They didn’t have the agility to test different models to see what would work for their audience.

It’s no wonder their readers wouldn’t jump over the high hurdles Variety created for them. But just because Variety didn’t manage to come up with the right balance of free and paid content doesn’t mean that The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Hulu Plus, Zynga, ESPN, and other free/pay mixes aren’t successful.

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