Is it time for online newspapers to consider charging?

While in countries around the world, many newspapers have applied the method of charging readers for reading news, in Vietnam, this issue is still a new concept.

It's time to charge readers for online newspapers in Vietnam. (Source: Internet)

However, many experts believe that Vietnamese newspapers should apply the above form to increase revenue for the editorial office as well as have funds to produce better quality news articles to serve the increasing needs of readers.

Good premise

In recent years, Vietnam's Internet infrastructure has developed remarkably. The 15-year overview report of the Vietnam Internet Association (VIA) shows that by September 2012, the number of Internet users in Vietnam had reached over 31 million, accounting for 35.49% of the population.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, as of July 2012, Vietnam had over 16 million 3G subscribers.

In a survey, VIA said that 94% of Internet users access the news, 92% search, 78% listen to music, and 72% research/study/work...

Some statistics show that currently, the number of mobile phone subscribers in Vietnam has reached over 127 million, the percentage of smartphones accounts for 16%, 38% of people use phones to surf the web.

With the trend of technology convergence towards mobile devices taking place widely, many experts also affirm that the news experience on mobile devices will gradually overwhelm computers.

The above numbers represent a huge user potential for digital content to take off. In a gloomy economic context, the advertising pie cannot expand, even decline, so each newspaper needs to innovate to survive. Therefore, collecting money from readers is no longer a matter of "like it or not."

How to collect money from readers?

At the International Conference on Technology and Digital Content organized by the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade on December 3, many experts also said that it is time to eliminate the mindset of "reading newspapers for free" on the Internet.

Giving evidence, Mr. Le Quoc Minh, Editor-in-Chief of Vietnam Electronic NewspaperPlus10 years ago, there was a view in the world that newspapers charging for subscriptions would lose readers. However, there are still some newspapers that are determined to follow this path, such as the Wall Street Journal (USA) which charged for subscriptions since 1997 and 10 years later, the number of people paying to read this newspaper has reached 1 million.

Some newspapers have adopted the practice of collecting money from readers, then removing it and then reintroducing it, such as the New York Times. To date, this newspaper has 472,000 subscribers, paying between $15 and $35 a month.

As for the Financial Times, this newspaper has applied charging since June 2012 and has 285,000 subscribers. It is expected that the number of people paying to read the electronic version will be higher than the number of people buying the print version in 2013, with a forecast growth rate of 30%/year.

As of November 2012, about 350 newspapers in the United States and Canada were charging readers. Several newspapers in Europe, Australia and Asia have adopted reader fees as a means of survival.

There are several ways to charge readers, including charging for the entire page; allowing a limited number of articles to be viewed for free before paying; or a "freemium" approach that includes some articles that are completely free while others are paid...

However, to collect money from readers, one of the important issues is that the editorial offices themselves must have high-quality content, and the technology platform for collecting fees must be flexibly customized with versions for computers, mobile devices, etc.

Mr. Le Quoc Minh also recommended that “newspapers should not put profit above the public interest in accessing information. Therefore, each newspaper needs to have a flexible mechanism and use an appropriate business model.”

Supporting the idea of ​​charging readers, Mr. Trong An, General Secretary of the electronic newspaper Kien Thuc (kienthuc.vn) said that this model is difficult to implement at the present stage, especially when copyright issues have not been tightened. A news article just published in one newspaper, just a few minutes later appeared on the page of another newspaper.

In addition, the profit sharing ratio between network operators and content providers is still unreasonable, leading to newsrooms only collecting a small amount of money. In addition, underdeveloped online payments also hinder this.

In fact, many major media companies in the world were worried that charging readers would cause them to lose readers to competitors, and they ended up being slow for a long time. Some say that Vietnamese online newspapers can learn from this experience, but only when many newspapers charge at the same time can a new standard be created./.

According to (vietnamplus.vn) - HL