Who Wants to Pay for MSM News Online? Survey Says: Hardly Anybody — Pinch Disagrees!
Would you pay to read the MSM? Not if you’re like most people, according to this AP report of a Pew Research study:
Getting people to pay for news online at this point would be “like trying to force butterflies back into their cocoons,” a new consumer survey suggests.
That was one of several bleak headlines in the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual assessment of the state of the news industry, released Sunday.
There’s more:
About 35 percent of online news consumers said they have a favorite site that they check each day. The others are essentially free agents, the project said. Even among those who have their favorites, only 19 percent said they would be willing to pay for news online – including those who already do.
There’s little brand loyalty: 82 percent of people with preferred news sites said they’d look elsewhere if their favorites start demanding payment.
