[reporting by Dorian Benkoil}
Updated from yesterday’s entry on Time-Warner: Tom Cascio says: The 5.2%-27% range is NOT regarding net subs generated. It is the percentage of the current subscriber file that is registered for website access.
Ned Desmond, Executive Editor, Time, Inc Interactive, and Tom Cascio, Assistant Director, Time Consumer Marketing made so many interesting points it’s hard not to overload the blog. One thing jumps out, to start: It’s clear from their remarks they’re (still) struggling with how to approach their relationship with AOL deal. Some of the comments Desmond made: The way their content is displayed on AOL (most of it available to AOL subs) is because they’ve “backed into” the AOL deal. He also said that they had almost reversed their concept of the world, with AOL going to a much more free content model and Time Warner looking at just what to put behind what they call “the curtain.” “AOL has given up completely on the idea of paying. We’ve become a fan of paid, protected content,” he said. (You can find out more at paidContent.org’s AOL/TW page about goings on at the company.)
Desmond noted that they’ve also gone back and forth with how much to protect, moving from a previous model where they put virtually all of the content in given publications behind the wall to a world in which a lot of enticing content, for example, slideshows and some stories on People are now free. Surprisingly, they said 64% of their net People subscriptions from the Web come from premium pages. In general, put your best content behind the wall they said. (No surprise.)
Other points they made:
– Very short-term lower-priced offers work best. You can’t get much lower-priced than, say, $4.95 for six months of Fortune, so why bother selling single articles? Plus, Cascio said, 70% of short-termers convert to longer-term. (Wonder if the fact that it’s automatic on the credit card has anything to do with that?)
– You have to have “enormous numbers of pageviews,” something like Sports Illustrated or Money to have it be successfully ad-supported, Desmond said.
– They did very well on phones/handhelds with SI’s swimsuit photos. (Big surprise — ha ha — audience chuckles.)
– Net subs on sites is up 54% 2002-2004. Ranges individually from 5.2% for Time (older demographic that’s not as Internet savvy, said Cascio) to about 27% for Cooking Light.
– 2005 plan: Work on traffic and audience growth; optimize with search engines; use incentives and promotion to increase registrations.
– They’re trying to reinforce the idea that quality writing has value and should be paid for. (Until the day when they no longer can do so.)
The coverage is sponsored by Click&Buy.
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