A Study Of The Reasons For The Success Of The New Yorker Paywall

On November 11,2014, the New Yorker, an American Magazine which was founded in 1925, revamped its paywall model and rolled out a metered paywall model. Users who exceed the limit of 6 free articles per month will be required to pay for either a digital edition or print edition. This online content charging model has also been expanded to its various APPs in smartphones and iPads, ect. The New Yorker saw both its subscription users and traffic rise abruptly after erecting the paywall.Over the past decade, the newspaper and magazine industry have been suffering revenue declines and the transition to digital was not smooth. Meanwhile, most of the newspapers and magazines used free online content to bring in advertising revenue in order to cover their print loss. However, as is evidenced by the fact, the advertising revenue from free online content was not sufficient to replace the loss of print revenue. Many publishers had explored erecting their paywalls to charge readers for online content, aiming to reverse the downward trend of their revenue. Among the publishers that implemented the paywall model, some have been successfully in utilizing the model, while others have failed. The significance of exploring the reasons for the success of the New Yorker Paywall is to provide useful tips for other media organizations that has failed with their paywall model or those media organizations that plan to roll out their paywall in the future.This research studies the New Yorker Paywall, aiming to explore the reasons for its success from the perspective of Marketing Mix theory. The research questions includes:what are the New Yorker's customer strategies, content strategies, pricing strategies, online publishing strategies and promotion strategies? How these strategies contribute to a successful paywall mechanism?The findings of the research include:the priority of a successful paywall is to target the market accurately; the quality and uniqueness of the online content is the cornerstone of a successful paywall; a broad of online publishing channels makes the paywall more successful; reasonable and smart pricing strategies make it easier to attract new audience and reserve existing audience; various promotion activities and campaigns motivate audience to subscribe to the New Yorker.