Chicago Sun-Times Paywall: Paper To Charge Online Readers

One of Chicago's two main daily newspapers will be introducing a "metered" paywall later this week.

The Chicago Sun-Times announced late Tuesday that it, along with all of its sister publications, will begin charging to view content across their websites. Beyond 20 free page views every 30 days, any online reader who is not a print subscriber to the paper will need to pay $6.99 every four weeks or $77.87 for a year's worth of access.

Subscribers to any of Sun-Times' 40 newspapers will qualify for a reduced charge of $1.99 every four weeks covering web content. Views of newspaper front pages and section front pages, classifieds and advertorials won't count toward the 20 free pages allotted to non-web subscribers.

Jeremy Halbreich, Sun-Times Media chairman said "the time is long overdue for us to begin charging for our content."

"It is certainly award-winning content and we need to find new ways to support it," Halbreich continued.

Mobile sites and news apps are, for now, exempt from the fees, according to the Daily Herald. The Herald also notes, apparently based on a memo Halbreich sent Sun-Times employees, that the move is "just one of many digital initiatives currently under way, including the very successful launch of our Chicago Sun-Times tablet and mobile apps, along with our e-Paper and e-Reader programs."

In September, the Herald became the first Chicago area daily to erect a digital paywall. The Herald said the change was "mandated by broad shifts in the traditional newspaper business model." The Herald's rate for digital-only subscribers -- $19.99 per month -- was higher than the Sun-Times' planned charge.

The announcement arrives one day after another round of layoffs at the paper, which Halbreich called the "final piece" of 18 months of staffing reductions, Crain's Chicago Business reports. Sun-Times Media has handed down hundreds of layoffs over the past two years.

Last year, renowned Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert addressed the concept of paywalls in a blog post:

I would hate for my reviews to go behind a paywall. I have around 10,000 of them here. For many years they existed only as a pile of yellowing tear-sheets. ... [H]ere they all are online, being read every day from virtually everyplace in earth. One in Yemen, one in Pago Pago, it adds up. Daniel from Pago Pago is a valued commenter on the blog. Think how great that makes me feel. If I go behind a paywall, however, and a high school student in Mexico is doing some research, there are lots of other excellent critics on the web, and everybody knows it.

Photo by edenpictures via Flickr.

Comments

[robert horwitz]

03:11 PM on 12/07/2011

Sure people need to be paid for their work. It's not only fair but financially necessary. There is just one problem as far as the News Business goes. Most folks can't either afford to pay for it or just plain won't. Especially if they can get the same news for free. To make things worse this Pay Wall stuff comes at a really bad time for many financially strapped people. For me I could see paying a small monthly Internet Fee to go to the News Industry if this would work out as one of several possible models. I'm not writing a Bill here in Legislative Language. Its just a thought.

[josephXY]

06:11 AM on 12/07/2011

So it is probably one more newspaper getting mentioned here:
http://newspaperdeathwatch.com/

In general, newspapers are in a steady decline since years. Closures are becoming more
frequent now.
For instance a study in 2009 / 2020 found "that UK circulation has fallen by 25% between 2007-09, second only to the US, where the decline was 30%."
And that has been two years ago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/17/newspaper-circulation-oecd-report

[NoBlueDogs]

05:07 AM on 12/07/2011

One less newspaper that I will ever read. Oh wait, I don't read them. Nevermind!

[J Osteen]

09:04 AM on 12/07/2011

Precisely.....the Sun-Times will join the NYT in that it will be a "formerly read online source."

[kooosh]

04:41 AM on 12/07/2011

I'd love to see some hard statistics about how these paywalls work out for publishers. There is entirely too much free content on the internet to justify paying for anything.

[parlimentMike]

03:08 AM on 12/07/2011

Which newspaper is reporting the truth about the wars?

Which newspaper is reporting the truth about banking?

Which newspaper reports the truth about political pronouncements as they cover the pronouncements?

Which newspaper got the scheming to get America entangled in relentless wars right?

I'll pay for news, but I need to know where I can get it.

[tooncesrocks]

03:50 AM on 12/07/2011

democracynow.org

and it is free :)

[breakingpoint]

02:59 AM on 12/07/2011

citizen journalist will be taking over

[Z2a]

01:47 AM on 12/07/2011

Hey the Onion is still free. I rather read that than pay for the Sun Times

[Z2a]

01:22 AM on 12/07/2011

If I pay $6.99 will I get an ad free online version? If you're going to charge me 7 bucks for a bunch of pop ups, you can shove it.

[HKR07]

01:40 AM on 12/07/2011

I will not pay to read a paper online.

[J Osteen]

09:11 AM on 12/07/2011

I LOVED the NYT, but I simply will NOT pay for online news.

[advocatusdiaboli]

01:20 AM on 12/07/2011

Dinosaurs became extinct and hiding behind barrier and isolating themselves would not have helped. Evolve or die: those are your only two choices.

[Fizzbin]

12:06 AM on 12/07/2011

The business analysts who pitched this as a good idea are the only ones who will make any money on it.

[mirza]

11:59 PM on 12/06/2011

Hope they go bust

[odelly]

11:57 PM on 12/06/2011

first the banks and their debit card fees,now the newspapers want to charge for what was free,ah the rich you gotta love em they just keep trying.

[ZoeT]

11:27 PM on 12/06/2011

It's probably true that newspapers made out of trees are going extinct. As a long-time newspaper reader, I had a hard time going online to get my news, but I grew into it and now find holding a rag newspaper to be, well, messy. I even read my small-town weeklies online. Times are changing and people need to be paid for their writing and editing. So how does HuffPost do it? They seem to be in the black. Be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[anthonyNtx]

12:14 AM on 12/07/2011

I love the Internet. I can search the world instantly for whatever news story I want.

[MichaelMcKLA]

02:23 AM on 12/07/2011

Content provided mostly by unpaid bloggers results in a vast readership and advertising revenue. The key is: "unpaid." Somebody's making a living here but many certainly are not.

[spike91nz]

11:27 PM on 12/06/2011

Access to information is provided to only those who can pay for the privilege. This is the new political-economic model.There is no public right to know nor publicly held information, only those who can pay for admission and the rest. It is fast on its way to becoming a rental world where we have all the culture, information and rights that we can afford. The irony is that the displacement of god given natural rights and their extension into the right to information and to participate in a jointly owned culture was championed by bible thumping right wing ideologues who trumpet the glories of godless capitalism, well at least heartless capitalism, while preaching a spiritual version of social darwinism and rugged individualism. I wonder what the price will be for absolution or if there will be a fee at the pearly gates to keep the riffraff out?

[thedave108]

11:25 PM on 12/06/2011

Excellent - the sooner as many propaganda rags as possible make themselves inaccessible to most people, the better off we will all be.....