Categories: OLD Media Moves

FT preparing iTunes-like pay model

Ian Burrell of The Independent newspaper in London reports that The Financial Times is about to unveil an online pay model similar to that of iTunes.

Burrell writes, “Senior sources at the FT have confirmed that the group is in discussions with a number of payment processor companies to establish a simple ‘one -lick’ procedure that would enable consumers to pay a small fee for single articles that would otherwise be available only to subscribers.

“FT executives, who hope to have the system in place by 2010, have not settled on the price for an individual story, but say that they have been impressed by the ‘fabulous buying experience’ of iTunes, which allows users to buy a single song for 79p.”

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Massimo Moruzzi says:
August 8, 2009 at 6:41 am
Great. By the time the advertising market will pick up again, they'll be ready with a stupid iTunes-like system which makes no sense at all for the news (how many times do you read an article twice? and 10 times? and 50?)
FT already charges says:
August 10, 2009 at 5:16 pm
FT has been charging for access to its archives for 2 years. For libraries and other such research organizations, FT charges a fee for getting its archives through 3rd party vendors, i.e. LexisNexis, Factiva. etc. And the fee is for EVERY vendor, not one fee for using all vendors. This must be the the next step in its efforts to produce a completely encompassing pay model.