Our Hometown, Inc. - - Page 29

Everyone in the community newspaper industry knows their readers skew older, so it was no surprise when a study of the ages of digital subscribers to the Times Record showed a considerable number were above age 50. This study was the subject of an article featured in: The report compares user age demographics before implementing a paywall and the digital subscribers to the website after thepaywall went up.

This study: Projecting Community Newspaper Paywall Revenues, characterizes the surge in digital subscription revenue seen during the first year at the Oil City (PA) Derrick. The website generated 50% of first year revenue after two months with a hard paywall. The data suggests this surge pattern can be used to predict any newspaper’s first year paywall revenue as early as sixty days post-paywall.