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Paid Online News Venture Fails To Get Subscribers

Posted by timothy on from the it-seemed-different-on-paper dept.

Ian Lamont writes "The idea of migrating people from free online news content to paid subscriptions has been dealt a blow. A venture meant to fill the void left by the print Rocky Mountain Times has attracted 3,000 subscribers — just 6% of its original goal of reaching 50,000 paid subscribers by Thursday. InDenverTimes.com is currently free, but the plan was to have gated premium content starting next month for a $5/month subscription. The project has entrepreneurial backing and articles from journalists who used to work for the print-focused Rocky Mountain News, which closed last month. However, a lack of paying subscribers and low online ad rates means that the venture might have to scale back its ambitions."

3 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. oblig. by Icegryphon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am just going to leave this here. Clicky

  2. No PR by at.splat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I live in Denver and always preferred the Rocky Mountain News to the Denver Post, the local paper that has so far survived. I'm a news junkie and get all my content almost exclusively online. I never heard of InDenverTimes.com until this morning.

    While the summary's conclusion may be correct — migration from print to web may very well be a futile endeavor — it's an entirely different story if people in the target demographic know nothing of the venture. Let's at least acknowledge this for what it is: in large part, a failure of publicity.

  3. But The Tyee brings in money by rueger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    British Columbia's Tyee.ca just ran a fundraising appeal to bring in dollars for additional election coverage. They asked for $5,000 and got $20,000.

    People will pay for good journalism, at least if they feel that the conventional outlets aren't doing the job.

    --
    Three Squirrels