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Sac Bee’s Politics Site To End Subscription Fees; Switching To Ad-Supported Model

By David Kaplan - Thu 01 Nov 2007 02:57 PM PST

The Sacramento Bee will stop charging the $499 annual subscription for access to its state government news site, Capitol Alert, and will move to a free, ad-supported model, according to a memo sent to current subscribers that was posted on Romenesko.

The McClatchy-owned newspaper introduced the fee-based site aimed at state government lobbyists and politicos in January. While the general subscription charge was $499 a year, lower rates were available for offices or organizations that buy several memberships at once.

-- Reuters: A Sac Bee rep insisted that the paper simply felt that doing away with the paid online subscriptions made sense over the long term. However, declining to offer the number of subs, the rep conceded that: “It’s fair to say that it did not meet expectations.”

Posted in: Advertising, Companies, McClatchy, Media, Newspapers

Tags: capitol alert, sacramento bee,

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From db Thu 01 Nov 2007 07:07 PM

Paid is obviously not the weay to go for info that likely was being discussed by everyone in the hallways anyways. The content really could not have been exclusive.

From Arthur Frischman Sat 19 Jan 2008 06:28 AM

Abandoning the paid subscription model is in vogue nowadays but is it the preferred choice or is it simply business has not figured out how to sell paid memberships to the public. With the top few sites taking 95% of the ad dollars, where are all the other ad revenues going?

Aggregation of paid memberships, like the cable TV model is the future of paid memberships. Consumers don’t mind paying for content and services, they just don’t want to pay for it in numerous places and numerous times. Password fatigue is getting to them and certainly mini-charge fatigue isn’t helping.

Aggregate numerous sites, from numerous categories that consumers are interested in ... and they will come.