Asheville Citizen-Times web content could end up behind pay wall next year

Share
Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

Gannet Blog reports that Gannett is planning to extend pay walls to more of its newspaper websites early next year. The company has been experimenting w pay walls at three locations, including Tallahassee, were former Asheville Citizen-Times editor Bob Gabordi now works as editor.

From Gannett Blog:

In a major shift in digital strategy, CEO Gracia Martore told Wall Street stock analysts today that Gannett plans to extend a paywall across more newspapers early next year, giving readers only limited free access to content.

She didn’t provide key details, such as pricing or revenue projections, and didn’t directly say whether the plan would be companywide. … GCI’s paywall model will be closely watched across the industry because it’s the nation’s No. 1 newspaper publisher. It proceeds cautiously in new initiatives, so a move toward companywide paywalls would be a strong signal that such a strategy is worth pursuing.

Tags::
Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

  • 1

You Might also Like

8 Comments

  1. Wjell December 19, 2011

    HA…HA…HA

    Gannett management better slow down puffing on their crack pipes.

    Circulation down to about 10 people?

    Online advertisers wising up and realizing they are getting ripped off?

    The decision to require commenters to have a face book account destroy page view numbers?

    Go ahead and try and collect from online readers.

    I have never seen a company so intent on self-destruction.

    Reply
  2. ZzzTop December 19, 2011

    Will we still have to deal with terribly annoying ad’s that often lock up browsers?

    Reply
  3. A-M December 15, 2011

    The pay wall works for the Tallahassee Democrat because they provide extensive coverage of the two universities in town – Florida State and Florida A&M. It gives them an extended readership of graduates and fans whose only access to that content is online. The AC-T doesn’t offer extensive coverage of anything – who do they expect will pay for that?

    Reply
  4. Adam December 14, 2011

    I concur. The online content is not worth reading for free. No way is it worth paying for.

    Reply
  5. Dergara December 13, 2011

    I have to admit that this is the way of the future, but I don’t think it is wise to push a pay wall on such a small town. If you subscribe to the newspaper then the web content should be free. Just saying. That should be the business model. But in a town of this size I think it is counter productive to push your luck.

    Reply
  6. LOKEL December 13, 2011

    Well, that will be the death nell for the CT … Many folks do not pay for the published content (in newsprint), and while I currently read the online version daily, I will not pay a penny for content that is often littered with misspellings, grammatical errors and other errors.

    Such as you may say: well, just toady there is a headline “SUB Crashes into home” … what is a/an SUB?

    Reply
    1. Curious December 13, 2011

      Agree that it’s unlikely that people will pay much, if anything, for the thin web content of the Citizen-Times. The website is often confusing. Hugely outdated information is kept active, so the reader is never sure if a link is for a recent headline or one from months ago.

      Reply
    2. Denum December 15, 2011

      The word is spelled “knell” not “nell.” Good thing we don’t pay for comments to be error-free either.

      Reply

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Stories