What are you willing to pay for online news?

Here is a report from PriceWaterHouseCoopers that looked at what people in seven different countries would pay for online news (click the headline). The countries included were the U.S., the Netherlands, Canada, the U.K., France, Germany and Switzerland. It was presented at the World Association of Newspapers meeting in Barcelona this week.

There are a few interesting highlights from the report.

Surprises:
-Americans are willing to pay the most for their online news, 68 percent of what they pay for print.
-The Dutch are willing to spend the least at 38 percent of print price.
-Consumers say they are the most interested in general news, but are least likely to pay for that. They would much rather pay for highly specialized, focused, targeted and relevant content.

No surprise there:
-Consumers are most likely to pay for sports and financial news. In fact some are willing to pay 97 percent of print price for financial news. The Wall Street Journal has been proving consumers willingness to pay for financial news online for a while now.
-Consumers are more likely to pay for news that comes from "high value, topic-specific publications" (i.e. magazines). We know this because people are willing to plunk down $5-$8 for glossies and only $.50 to $.75 for a newspaper.
- Readers expect to be a part of the news. They not only want to comment on stories online, but they want to contribute content too. This scares me. Not only because there are thousands of people out there that would love to do my job for free, but because of the lack of training when it comes to journalistic professionalism in the armature reporting community and blogosphere. We need a well-trained corps of professional journalists to properly report the news without bias or influence. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about readers feeling like the are "a part of their paper." But there are good and bad ways to go about it. Readers should only contribute content in areas where they are experts or have some extensive knowledge. Even then, they need some training.

Bad news:
-Because general news is offered for free in so many places online, it's going to be really difficult to charge for it. Ultimately, I see this as a losing scheme. You can't keep producing content for free online. The advertising just doesn't support it. And yet this is the product that is most in demand. That's a pickle I can't work my way around yet.

Good news:
-That people are willing to pay for online news at all.


The study did not look at the impact of electronic subscription services like the Kindle or some iPhone apps on consumer willingness to pay for online news. That would be the next study I'd like to see. How much should newspaper companies be looking at devices like that and developing subscription services to deliver to them.

I want to hear thoughts from readers about this subject. What kinds of online news are you willing to pay for and what are you willing to pay for it?