AddThis SmartLayers

Regional daily outlines metered paywall plan

One of Britain’s biggest regional dailies has unveiled further details of its plans for a metered paywall on its website.

DC Thomson announced last week that Aberdeen’s Press and Journal would move to a subscription-based website as part of a relaunch of its online platform.

In future, readers will get access to ten free articles per month after which they will have to choose from one of three available subscription packages.

Today the publisher announced the appointment of Piano Media as the software provider for its proposed metering system.

DC Thomson’s Head of Digital, Kirsten Morrison said, “After looking at the various paid content solution providers, we decided that Piano’s ‘Lite’ solution was the best fit for us.

“We were very impressed by Piano’s flexibility and their integration and implementation speed.”

Piano Media manages subscription revenues for more than 100 media websites in Europe and the United States but the Press & Journal will be its first in the UK.

International operations director Peter Richards said: “We are pleased that The Press and Journal has chosen us as their digital subscription software provider.

“Entering the UK market solidifies our presence outside of central Europe as we’ve recently launched our solutions in Germany, Spain and the US.”

The new website has been designed for optimum functionality across web, mobile, and tablet platforms and will focus on providing instant news to readers via a real-time stream of breaking news in the form of a timeline.

Customers will be given the opportunity to tailor their timeline to contain topics or specific geographic areas that they are most interested in. Other website features include a ‘trending topics’ section, and exclusive video content.

2 comments

You can follow all replies to this entry through the comments feed.
  • June 5, 2014 at 5:26 pm
    Permalink

    Quality content is crucial for paid for web. No doubt extra staff will be hired to ensure this is found. Paid for is a no no for most weeklies. Content just too boring.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)
  • June 6, 2014 at 8:38 am
    Permalink

    Extra staff? Are you joking? That really would buck the trend.
    Get the existing staff to do it on top of everything else and then cut their pay. That’s more like it.

    Report this comment

    Like this comment(0)