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Reuters readers want - but won't pay for - quality

Millennials Digital News BII

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News readers value quality news – particularly the brand name of the publication that’s breaking the story – but do not want to pay for this news, according to a new Reuters study cited by Digiday.

The study – which surveyed 1,230 Reuters’ readers – was carried out to help the publisher assess its future strategy. Some highlights from the study follow:

Branding matters for news publishers. 81% of respondents equate news brands with trusted content. This is welcome news for legacy publishers that are known for being reliable news sources. Moreover, brand loyalty is also significant for news, with nine out of 10 respondents saying they turn to a particular news brand to verify breaking news.
Native homepages and apps are still relevant. Somewhat surprisingly, a large majority of respondents (85%) said they source their news via publishers’ native websites and apps, compared to 32% of respondents who said they turn to social media as a source for news. However, the study did find that millennials consume more news via social media, with half doing so over Facebook. The fact that most respondents use a publication's properties to find news demonstrates the importance for publishers' to develop and market their own owned-and-operated sites. This is especially important given the whims with which third-party platforms may alter their algorithms, as noted above.
Readers do not want to pay for news. Two-thirds of respondents claimed that they would not be willing to pay for online content. This sentiment falls in line with a separate study conducted by the Media Insight Project, a collaboration between the American Press Institute and the AP-NORC, which found that around three-quarters of millennials had not paid for either digital subscriptions to newspapers or digital news apps. This may be unwelcome news to publishers hoping to launch subscription access to their digital content. They will likely be targeting a small segment of readers willing to pay for access.

Readers’ unwillingness to pay for digital news is discouraging for publishers that are seeking out new ways to monetize in the face of surging ad-block usage and limited digital ad revenues. One alternative to digital advertising or paid-subscriptions as a means for publishers to earn revenue is through micro-transactions, whereby readers pay a small sum to access digital news content.

For instance, The Boston Globe charges readers 99 cents to have full access to the website for one day. Another example is the publisher micro-platform Blendle, which lets readers pay between 10 and 30 cents to access individual articles.

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