Wired’s paywall has begun

Nicholas Thompson

Eric Johnson of Recode writes about how Wired magazine’s paywall has begun.

Johnson writes, “‘You can read whatever you want, but if you read five stories in a month, we ask you to please pay us,’ Wired Editor in Chief Nick Thompson said on the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka.

“Once Wired visitors cross the five-story mark, they are asked to pay $20 per year to continue reading, with the added bonus of no advertisements, although Thompson said the first three months will be free. Customers are becoming more accustomed to paywalls, he said, and media businesses are realizing a simple but true fact: They work, while advertising increasingly does not.

“‘All digital publishers have to think about this,’ he said. ‘You can come up with lots of different business models: You can host conferences in Huntington Beach, which is an excellent idea. You can have podcasts, you can have videos, where the CPMs are pretty good. Or, you can say, ‘We want you to pay us.’'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.