Business Insider to put paywall around some content

Business Insider is on course to be one of the first digital only news operations to erect a paywall around some of its content, writes Matthew Garrahan of the Financial Times.

Garrahan writes, “Could a paywall work for Business Insider? Its mix of free, irreverent business news, slideshows and content pulled and repurposed from other sources has won it a large online following. The Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media report this year found that Business Insider had the fourth largest audience among digital news sites: only Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Bleacher Report had more readers.

“Ken Doctor, an industry analyst, expects Business Insider to introduce a metered model that will apply only to its most active and regular users: casual users are unlikely to be asked to pay. Business Insider’s consideration of a paywall is a reminder that news sites need money ‘to continue to do high quality journalism that people depend on’, he says.

“With Facebook, Google and Apple paying more attention to the news business, the industry’s prospects are certainly not as bleak as they were a couple of years ago. But with online advertising facing a rocky future, free news sites that do not have deep-pocketed backers need new revenue streams. They will not bring the industry back to its heyday, but paywalls may ensure its survival.”

Read more here.