Americans, it turns out, are less willing than people in many other Western countries to pay for their online news, a new study by the Boston Consulting Group showed.
Among regular Internet users in the US, 48 percent said in the survey, conducted last month, that they would pay to read news online, including on mobile devices.
That result tied with the UK for the lowest figure among nine countries where Boston Consulting commissioned surveys. In several Western European countries, more than 60 percent said they would pay.
When asked how much they would pay, Americans averaged just US$3 a month, tied with Australia for the lowest figure — and less than half the US$7 average for Italians. The other countries included in the study were Germany, France, Spain, Norway and Finland.
“Consumer willingness and intent to pay is related to the availability of a rich amount of free content,” said John Rose, a senior partner and head of Boston Consulting Group’s global media practice.
“There is more, better, richer free in the United States than anywhere else,” Rose added.
The question is of crucial interest to the US newspaper industry, which is weighing whether and how to put toll gates on its Web sites, to make up for plummeting print advertising.
Rose and Dominic Field, a partner and head of the Boston Consulting media practice in the Americas, said that in Western European countries, news tended to be dominated by a handful of large players.
In the US, however, they said, the news market is so fragmented that even if organizations banded together to charge for digital access, consumers would still find free sources online.
Americans were much more likely than people in the other countries to say they might pay for admission to sites that offered Internet access to multiple papers.
Paradoxically, in every country, the people who were willing to pay the most for news online were the people who already pay the most for news — avid newspaper readers.
The study, which drew from a survey of 5,000 people, concluded that charging for online access to news would not greatly increase a newspaper’s revenue, but since the cost of reaching Internet readers was very low, it could significantly increase profit.
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