Most consumers (85%) want free online content––and nearly eight in ten (79%) say they would stop using a website that introduced charges, presuming they could find the same information at no cost elsewhere, according to a survey from Nielsen.
Asked to consider advertising, 47% of consumers say they are willing to accept more advertising to subsidize free content, but 64% say if they must pay for content online, there should be no ads.
However, consumers are more willing to at least consider paying for some specific types of content, especially if they have done so before.
Overall, the online content for which consumers are most like to pay—or have already paid for—are those they normally pay for offline, including movies (46%), music (41%), games (35%), and select videos(42%). Such media tend to be professionally produced, at comparatively high costs.
Consumers are least likely to pay for access to peer-to-peer content and social media:
- Podcasts: 25%
- Social communities: 24%
- Consumer-generated videos: 21%
- Blogs: 17%
In between are an array of news formats—newspapers, magazines, Internet-only news sources, and radio news and talk shows—created by professionals at a relatively high cost and, in the case of newspapers and magazines, commonly sold offline.
Only about one-third (34%) would consider paying for newspaper content online. Support is strongest in Latin America (40%), Asia/Pacific (36%), and Middle East/Africa/Pakistan (35%)—parts of the world where print circulations are still growing, according to Nielsen.
Magazines do slightly better than newspapers: 39% of consumers say they would consider paying for online magazine content, while only 31% would consider paying for online-only news sources.
Looking for great digital marketing data? MarketingProfs reviewed more than 200 research sources and selected 64 of the best to create the Digital Marketing Factbook a 144-page compilation of data and 110 charts, covering email marketing, search engine marketing, and social media. Also check out The State of Social Media Marketing, a 240-page original research report from MarketingProfs.
Compensation Conditions
Whatever their preferences, consumers generally agree that online content will have to meet certain criteria before they spend money to access it:
- 78% say if they already subscribe to a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television service, they should be able to use its online content for free.
- 71% say online content of any kind will have to be considerably better than what is currently free before they will pay for it.
- 62% say once they purchase online content, it should be theirs to copy or share with whoever they want.
Consumers are ambivalent about whether the quality of online content would suffer if companies could not charge for it: 34% say content quality would suffer, 30% say it would not, and the remaining 36% have no opinion.
Companies have begun to experiment with a range of payment models, from full service subscriptions to individual transactions, or micropayments. About one-half (52%) of consumers favor the latter option, even though micropayments have proved cumbersome to implement in the past.
But a more manageable system may be no more enticing: Only 43% say an easy payment method would make them more likely to buy content online.
About the data: Findings are from the Nielsen's report Changing Models: A Global Perspective on Paying for Online Content, February 2010, and reflect the opinions of more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries.
