Four out of Five Publishers plan to Charge for Content says AOP

Results from the latest Association of Online Publishers (AOP) membership survey suggest that 82% of online publishers already charge for online content or plan to charge in the next 12 months.

Display advertising remains the most important source for members, but the next most important source is now paid for content at 13%.

Fifty-eight percent of member organisations currently charge for online content. Of those that do not, about half plan to charge in the next 12 months, bringing the proportion of those charging to more than four in five. Less than a fifth (18%) do not charge and do not intend to do so.

The survey found that nearly a third of respondents earn up to £100,000 per year from paid-for content, while 14% generate more than £1M in revenue from charges. The median level of revenue earned by online content is £400,000.

In conducting the survey, AOP aimed to examine how business models have been developed to deliver online publications, the revenue the industry generates, how this balance is changing, and the factors that constrain expansion of the business. 'The trend towards paid-for content among UK publishers has accelerated in the past six months, with consumers becoming more aware of, and more comfortable with, the fact that online content is not automatically free,' said Alex Daley, head of AOP. 'The need for publishers to supplement advertising models during the advertising downturn has prompted increased experimentation from online publishers, and the discovery of new revenue streams.'

Speaking recently Anne Ridyard, associate publisher at IDG, said that when IDG first locked off large amounts of content on Macworld.co.uk and Digitmag.co.uk, site traffic plummeted dramatically, but within 12 months had risen again to the levels achieved when the sites were free to access.

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