Era of free content is over says Fairfax chief

THE era of free online content is over, according to Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood, who indicated Fairfax would begin charging users to access parts of its website when the six-month free period for its new Sydney Morning Herald and Age iPad apps expires at the end of this year.
But Mr Hywood indicated Fairfax was unlikely to lock up a large part of its content behind a solid pay wall, suggesting a "freemium" model that was partly free and partly paid was the likely outcome.
"It's not in our interests to massively shrink our audiences,'' Mr Hywood said.
"The company is nearing 180 years (old) and for 180 years people have paid for content,'' he said, launching the new apps this morning. "There was a period where that print content was translated online and was for free.
"Publishers around the world are making the judgement that that period is essentially over,'' he said. "But it puts an onus on them that their journalism is essentially differentiated enough (to persuade people to pay for it).
"You have to reprosecute your entire strategy around what is paid and what is not.
"What The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have to do to prosper is to differentiate (their) content.''
The new apps will be free for six months, underwritten by a partnership with Telstra, after which time they will cost $8.99 a month, or less for a six-month or 12-month subscription, or if the reader also buys the newspaper.
Four other launch sponsors include ING, Toyota, American Express and Emirates have come on board for periods of between 3 months and 6 months, most featuring full-page ads the reader swipes to move past.
Fairfax, which built the app in-house in HTML5, is also working on new apps for its Domain real estate website and for The Australian Financial Review.
Mr Hywood said downloads for existing Fairfax iPhone apps and its smart edition iPad app for the Sydney and Melbourne mastheads were approaching 1.5 million, but the existing smart edition app downloads, which have been slammed in reviews for simply reflecting the printed product, numbered in the "tens of thousands''.
Fairfax Metro digital publisher Jane Huxley said with a million iPads expected to be in the market in Australia by the end of the year, the potential audience for the new apps was the 60 to 70 per cent of those owners who were likely to be interested in news. An Android version of the app is due out in about three months.
Fairfax is launching its native iPad apps a full year after The Australian launched its iPad app, which also costs $8.99 a month, but Mr Hywood said the Herald and Age apps were better than anything else in the market.
"It just takes the news media experience in Australia to a completely other level,'' he said.
He declined to give audience targets.
Fairfax Metro publisher Jack Matthews, who was quoted in Fairfax newspapers saying the new apps made their rivals look like "dogs'', said of the launch: "It's the best news app we've seen anywhere in the world.''
Ms Huxley said the app took a curated, or "best of'' approach to using content from the newspapers and their websites, rather than including all content, although she said market research had indicated readers wanted all sections of the printed products, such as Good Living and The Good Weekend, to be included.
Features of the apps, which are heavily photography based, include the ability for readers who register and give up their contact details to share content on Facebook, Twitter and via email, exclusive video content, picture galleries, puzzles, alerts and a clip and save section that allowed readers to archive stories to be read later.
The company has appointed separate editors for the apps: Stephen Hutcheon in Sydney and David Dick in Melbourne.
Ms Huxley said peak periods of consumption were expected to be during the commuter hours of 7am to 9am and 5pm to 7pm, as well as after 10pm.
The apps will be available from Apple's iTunes store tomorrow morning.