Stuff looking at options for premium membership
Fairfax Media’s news website stuff.co.nz may not be considering a paywall, but options to offer a premium membership service to New Zealand online readers are ‘‘really quite exciting’’, says Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood.
Media companies worldwide are grappling with the question of whether to provide free access to online news or to require some form of subscription fee.
In Australia, Fairfax titles such as the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review already have paywalls in place, but the New Zealand market is too small to go down that track, said Hywood.
With significant scale in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne, ‘‘you can get a decent return on the investment you’re putting in,’’ he said. ‘‘But that’s not necessarily replicable in other markets.’’
Instead, New Zealand chief executive Simon Tong was looking at a membership model and monetising the audience in different ways.
‘‘That’s something Simon and his team are working up,’’ said Hywood.
‘‘You can provide a whole range of services to members. It’s really up to your imagination and your ability to produce product. There’s an enormous upside.’’
In the half year to December Fairfax New Zealand, publisher of stuff.co.nz and newspapers the Sunday Star-Times, Dominion Post and The Press, grew its digital revenue by 25 per cent, mostly as a result of income from news site stuff.co.nz, said Hywood.
The growth was not from as high a base as in Australia, where digital business reached 35 per cent of revenue from Fairfax’s Metro news division, but ‘‘the focus on that business, and investments made like around [community engagement website] Neighbourly, are all about reducing the level of reliance on print over time.’’