Stuff, New Zealand’s biggest news website, may soon follow its rival nzherald.co.nz and start charging for access to some of its content.
Stuff CEO Sinead Boucher says the outlook for media has changed dramatically in the past couple of years, and readers will need to pay for the valuable material they are consuming.
“We are currently looking at the landscape for direct reader revenue and looking at where the opportunities are, then we will place a few bets.
“The kind of (business) models out there have really evolved a lot in the last few years and we have learned a lot watching the paths others have forged.
“We have kept an extremely close watching brief on it.”
The NZ Herald paywalled its premium digital content just over six months ago, and on September 28 reported that it had 15,000 subscriptions.
Boucher says Stuff may instigate a paywall but it could also look for public donations to support work like its section on climate change.
In the video interview with Mark Jennings, she also discusses the impact social media is having on traditional media, moves the Government could make to immediately improve local media’s chances of survival, and NZME’s latest move to take over Stuff.
