Pew: readers prefer ad-supported news to pay walls

Added by: Steve Fung, Mon 15th Mar 2010, 10:22:42

Advertising remains the primary means of support for online news outlets, and there's a long uphill battle facing anyone trying to forge new business models, at least according to a report produced by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The extensive report on the State of the Media examines numerous aspects of the media world, but emphasizes that, when it comes to online news, getting people to pay for content they otherwise value is "like trying to force butterflies back into their cocoons."

First things first: Pew notes that last year, online advertising saw its first decline since 2002. Numbers from eMarketer said that revenues fell by a total of $1 billion between 2008 and 2009. Still, a full 81 percent of Internet surfers say they're cool with online ads if it means the content remains free, although "much of that is because they find them easy to ignore."

Further, 21 percent said they click on ads "at least sometimes"—much higher than we expected—and that number goes up when the user is more active. For example, among daily Internet surfers, 28 percent reported clicking on ads. For people who visit at least six sites per day, the click rate is as high as 37 percent.

source: ars technica