Economist raises paywall

Lucia Moses of MediaWeek writes about how The Economist has increased the barrier to its online content.

Moses writes, “Last fall, the British newsweekly—whose high consumer prices make it the envy of the industry—made its print content available to all for 90 days instead of a year as before. Now, only subscribers can read content from the title’s weekly print edition online. (Some content, however, remains free, including daily news and blog posts.)

“The change to the paywall is a run-up to a broader plan to reset consumer pricing as e-reading options grow. Magazine pricing across digital reading devices can vary wildly, but The Economist hopes to establish a channel-agnostic pricing model for the magazine as it prepares to launch an iPad/iPhone edition.

“Current options include the print edition ($103.50 average annual subscription), audio edition ($8 per issue) and Amazon Kindle edition ($10.49 a month).”