News   Mar 28, 2024
 994     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 556     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 848     0 

Toronto Star cancelling pay wall

They can't unless they make really significant changes and this isn't it. A long slow death is what I predict at their current pace.
 
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/201...nd-paid-digital-subscriptions-on-april-1.html

So, how do they expect to stay in business if they can't charge for their product? My Google AdBlock blocks all ads, so there's no revenue there.

They likely made more off ad revenue before the paywall, than they've made over the last little while under a paywall. I dont know a single person who was paying for this. Everyone was simply bypassing it. I thought it would fail back when they announced it, as the Star has very little original content. Copying and pasting newswire stories isn't worth the money they were charging.

Im assuming their page hits took a drastic hit, and advertisers weren't happy with the new numbers.
 
Last edited:
The Star was/is the easiest paywall to bypass, they are the only one of "The Big Three" who made it so that if you stop loading mid-way, it won't count you as a page view. Technically it's still free minus comments on the bottom.
 
There is still a lot of original content on the Star's website, though I find so much more of it hidden among the clickbait, Outbrain links (which an adblocker does hide) and the partner content links. There would be junk health articles left up for weeks or months about nutrition or cancer survivors stuck in between links to legit, timely articles. The Star's site is awful that way. Then they started the auto-play videos, which deliver ads going around basic browser adblocks.

The Star still delivers good local journalism, at least. I still have a subscription, but I kept being logged out on their lousy site.
 
A few months back I had a fleeting moment when I considered subscribing to support their work. Here's the crazy thing: until you use up your 10 free articles and get that dialog box, it's not at all clear how to actually subscribe. The word "subscribe" doesn't even appear on the home page! There's a "My Subscription" link at the bottom and that doesn't even offer any info about how to subscribe.

They could have pushed it a lot harder.
 
Why would anyone pay to read that tabloid? The Daily Mail is the only model that works.

I believe the NYT is successful at it.

The Toronto Star ignored most of these, including #4 http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/white-papers/10-secrets-successful-meters-paywalls-reader-revenue-strategies/
 
Last edited:

Back
Top