A News Startup Fails To Get Traction In Denver

Mountain Climbers

Here’s another datapoint in the struggles of news organizations to get people to pay for news online: 200. That’s how many people were willing to chalk up $4 a month to access premium content on Rocky Mountain Independent, a Denver local news startup that debuted in early July; the site will no longer be updated as of Monday. This was take two for the site’s staffers, who had previously worked at another online Denver-area news startup, INDenver Times, after losing their jobs at the Rocky Mountain News, which closed down in late February. INDenverTimes — which is still live — was considered a failure because it attracted 3,000 subscribers, instead of the hoped for 50,000.

The Rocky Mountain Independent tried to distinguish itself by emphasizing “original” content, instead of aggregation, but the strategy apparently did not work. Editor Steve Foster tells the Denver Westwood, “I still believe that subscription memberships online are essential to the quality of news. But right now is a very tough time to ask for it. People just aren’t used to paying for news.”

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