Paywall Suspensions and Digital News Subscriptions

Abstract

In an effort to increase revenue amid declining print subscriptions, news organizations have shifted their focus to digital content consumption. On top of digital advertising revenue, digital subscriptions provide news organizations with an additional revenue stream. At the same time, though, this creates a conflict with the news organizations’ societal obligation to keep the public informed. Using individual-level clickstream data from a major news organization and temporary paywall suspensions during events of public interest, we investigate how paywall suspensions affect subsequent subscription decisions. Although paywall suspensions enable news organizations to inform the public, does this hinder or contribute to their commercial interests? Adopting various identification strategies to analyze both unplanned and planned events, our analyses reveal that temporary paywall suspensions not only increase the amount of traffic during the suspension period, but also increase the likelihood that visitors become subscribers. We further examine how the patterns of content consumption moderate the effect of the suspension on subscription behavior. Our results suggest that the variety of content consumed during the suspension period is associatedwith an increased likelihood that website visitors choose to subscribe.