Friday was Corporate's first opportunity to brief Wall Street stock analysts on results from these experiments, when it discussed third-quarter financial results during a conference call. Now, after reviewing the transcript, I'm struck by how little we were told.
CEO Craig Dubow devoted 570 words to the subject during his presentation, and this, apparently, is the bottom line: "We now have a couple of months of data as a result of these tests and, while it is still early, we are seeing some very interesting results and important takeaways."
Beyond that, details are scarce. Dubow says subscribers consume more content than non-subscribers. "Our subscribers are much more heavily engaged with our content than non-subscribers," he said. "Web users who are subscribers are consuming four and five times as many pages per visit as non-subscribers."
Yet, isn't that expected? For example, if I buy Coca-Cola and my neighbor doesn't, isn't it likely I'll drink more than my neighbor?
More unanswered questions
Even the most encouraging metric Dubow offered tells use relatively little: "We are seeing month-over-month gains in pageviews at two of the three sites." Question: How many pageviews did these sites lose after the paywalls were erected? And how many have the papers now recovered?
Perhaps most important, we weren't told anything about the impact on revenue. How does digital subscription revenue compare to any digital advertising losses, due to lower traffic, now that fewer people can view the sites for free?
To be sure, as Dubow said, GCI has just three months' data to examine. Changes in subscription prices; better promotion of these new offerings, plus content improvements, could significantly alter the results.
For now, though, shareholders and employees are left with a lot of unanswered questions.
But perhaps I missed something? None of the analysts asked a single question about paywall results during the conference call's Q&A session. Read Corporate's transcript yourself, and let us know. Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
[Image: today's Greenville News, Newseum]
Jim,
ReplyDeleteSaridakis said it best...He was willing to "bet his entire net worth" that Gannett did not do any research on their paywall strategy. This is very clear based on Mr. Dubow's incredibly scripted talking points. If they had a strategy and it was working, he would say it on the call.
At our newspaper, the numbers are miserable and compounded by the fact that our print subs are declining too.
Worse off, we have been delivering free Sunday newspapers and people are calling us to even cancel the FREE subs!
Calling to cancel a FREE edition? That is a very telling situation when Gannett tries to give them away and the public STILL doesn't want them.
ReplyDeletePeople are calling because of the aggressive tactics that newspapers have used to keep subscribers. I call to cancel a subscription but they keep dropping it off and then bill me for it. When will companies ever learn that bad customer service does not pay off? Certainly Gannett is reaping what it has sewed.
ReplyDeleteGannett continually screws the readers with poor service, and ever-shrinking products for which they charge more.
ReplyDeleteThe company operated with impunity for years because in many cases there was no competition. Now that there is, the fat cats don't know what to do exept watch their back.
I'd add a third question, Jim:
ReplyDelete<< "We are seeing month-over-month gains in pageviews at two of the three sites." Question: How many pageviews did these sites lose after the paywalls were erected? And how many have the papers now recovered? >>
"And what were the rates of page-view growth at those two papers as compared to the rates of page-review growth at similarly sized GCI newspaper.coms without a pay wall?"
I'm willing to be Saradakis' entire net worth (hell, I'll bet my own, too) that growth rate at the pay-walled sites are far below those of open sites. Historical data from other sites - even those that simply imposed registration requirements, not full pay walls - showed a dramatic slowdown in audience growth.
The lesson, IMHO: Paywalls feel comfortable to those who wish to cling to the days when information was scarce, and our organizations were one of the few sources for it. Those days are gone, and walling a site off from the audience does nnothing to bring those days back.
11:38
ReplyDeleteYou just pretty much put what's wrong with this company in one tidy paragraph.
Upper management screws the customers and it's employees. We could have an entire separate blog as to the stupid things they do.
Greenville and St George both down -70%. Tallahassee down -40%. The loss difference may not just be in execution styles, but in local online competition. Don't just ask how much has been lost, but ask who is picking up share... And, look at the demos. Is GCI making itself less relevant to younger consumers in those markets? Publishers will look at print circ decline, as a key measure, preferring a slow print death to online ad and audience growth. Try launching a mobile app with 70% smaller local online audience. Can always advertise it on wyff.com.
ReplyDelete