Digital Newspapers Don't Have a Monopoly on Paywalls

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ABC Cincinnati affiliate WCPO-TV, the flagship station of E.W.Scripps Co., will erect a paywall in 2014 for its online content, according to Poynter.org.

Poynter.org cites a NetNewsCheck post indicating WCPO has boosted its digital reporting presence by adding 30 editorial staffers. E.W. Scripps announced last year plans to erect paywalls for its newspaper holdings, which number 14. Overall, roughly 41 percent of the nation's daily newspapers have paywalls, according to Digital First Media.

Report Predicts 4 More Years of Newspapers Hemorrhaging Ad Revenues

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The good news is that digital versions of newspapers are beginning to attract more readers. The bad news, according to the annual PricewaterhouseCooper's Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report ("GEMO") released this week, is that newspapers' revenues overall will continue to plunge through at least 2017.

According to an Ad Age article about the report, even in the face of climbing circulation figures, declining advertising at a compound annual rate of 4.2 percent means overall newspaper revenues are forecast to drop at a combined annual growth rate of 2.9 percent between 2013-2017.

The Ad Age piece cites Newspaper Association of America 2012 figures showing newspaper Web sites attracted more than 100 million unique visitors. The GEMO report predicts a 9.7 percent compound annual growth rate in digital advertising over the next four years that, unfortunately, will largely be negated by a 7.8 percent compound annual drop-off in print edition ads.

Digital newspaper ads are expected to generate $5.5 billion in revenues by 2017, compared to $12.8 billion in print ads, according to the GEMO study.