Shelley Seale is a journalist, content creator, award-winning writer, author, publication designer, editor and communications professional. She can be reached at www.shelleyseale.com. and Twitter
What’s Happening:
As legacy news revenues continue to decline and large technology companies like Google, Facebook and Apple taking the lion’s share of digital advertising revenues, pay models have become an increasingly important part of the business of digital news.
Why It Matters
Newspaper subscription models are slowly increasing, but most news outlets still offer completely free access to news. More than two-thirds of leading newspapers (69%) across the EU and US are operating some kind of paywall, a trend that has increased since 2017. However, fears about paywalls limiting access to online news are “overblown,” according to the new Reuters research. Nic Newman of the Reuters Institute found that 81% of publishing executives say digital advertising remains a key focus of income, followed by subscriptions (78%) and native advertising (75%).
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