Salon.com last week offered its 2.7 million monthly visitors an “ad-free” version of its service and additional content in exchange for subscription fees of $30 per year. Non-paying users can continue to access the site but they will be exposed to larger adverts, taking up the centre of each page. According to recent research by EyeTracking.com, users spend more time with this new type of ad, already used by news network CNet.com, and brand recall was as much as three times higher than for conventional banners.
Variety.com is now charging users an annual fee of $59 for access to all content, the same charge as that levied by the on-line edition of The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com. Variety.com charges $2.95 for single-day access, compared with $0.75 for WSJ.com. WSJ.com is often cited as a rare success story in maintaining high user figures despite its subscription model.
Henry Shapiro, vice president and general manager of Variety.com told news agency Reuters that the move to a subscription service was not a direct result of the downturn in ad revenues. “We are a high-priced premium product in print, gathering a targeted, qualified, professional audience. Our strategy is about the quality of the audience as opposed to tonnage.”
Initially, financial news provider TheStreet.com charged for its content but changed to a free-access model because users could find what they wanted at the free sites of competitors.