Charging readers is really the trend of journalism

To collect fees effectively, newsrooms must orient the production of content for paying readers that specialize in specific areas and must invest well.

LTS: Working at the first newspaper to charge readers in Vietnam, journalist Tran Tien Duan, Editor-in-Chief of VietnamPlus e-newspaper said that charging readers is a trend of the world’s press. To collect fees effectively, newsrooms must orient the production of content for paying readers that specialize in specific areas and must make a worthy investment to improve the quality of articles. Big, hot issues are at the forefront. VietNamNet would like to introduce the following article of Mr. For online newspapers, revenue is mainly from advertising and media contracts. However, now, there is a big shift when businesses choose advertising media through social media more instead of advertising on electronic newspapers. The transformation of advertising methods and the reduction of revenue is a really challenging economic problem for newspaper leaders. E-newspapers want to survive and develop, they need to find new forms of journalism economy, in which fee collection can be a solution for electronic newspapers in Vietnam. Editor-in-Chief of VietnamPlus Online Newspaper Tran Tien Duan Fee collection at VietnamPlus e-Newspaper There are many newspapers in the world such as Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post (USA), Financial Times, The Economist (UK), Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet New Media (Sweden), Folha de São Paulo (Brazil). .. had early success with the digital-based fee model, before the growth of online advertising revenue slowed down and even declined in recent years. In addition, a harsh reality that has emerged in recent years is that up to 75-80% of digital advertising revenue flows into the pockets of two giants Google and Facebook. Because of that, newspapers found that they could no longer depend on advertising revenue, so charging readers really became a trend of the world press. On June 20, 2018, VNA’s online newspaper VietnamPlus became the first and only Vietnamese press agency to collect fees for reading content on digital platforms. Every day, VietnamPlus only distributes about 5-10 fee-based articles, including in-depth analysis articles, exclusive interviews, etc., produced by the newsroom itself, or translated under the franchise of major press units. In the world. Because the quantity of news sold is small, it does not affect the provision of essential information to serve readers and still ensures the principles and orientation of the VNA. VietnamPlus is the national foreign affairs electronic newspaper under the VNA. Therefore, the newspaper has many advantages due to the information system of the VNA and from 90 resident agencies at home and abroad. Therefore, VietnamPlus has more advantages when it comes to building specialized and in-depth content for its premium products, creating “commodity” products of high value and use value. Target a wide audience willing to pay to own that unique article or news. Interface of fee collection page of VietnamPlus newspaper The content that VietnamPlus has been collecting fees for focuses on 4 main areas: Politics – society, world, economy – technology and culture – sport. These articles are analyzed from multiple perspectives, and more importantly, have a lot of exclusive information because they are provided quickly, timely, and attractively by resident correspondents abroad. public interest. Regarding access organization, while The Straits Times and other fee-based online newspapers often put both paid and free content on the same website, Vietnam Plus separates the fee to https: //pay.vietnamplus.vn and free at https://vietnamplus.vn. This is to avoid offending readers who are not used to paying for e-newspapers, but will also affect the ability to cross-promote for subscriptions. In the near future, the newsroom is also planning to change it to allow partial reading, creating an incentive for users to be willing to pay. Taking the first step on a new path, VietnamPlus e-newspaper has constantly learned from the electronic newspaper fee models in the world, researched the information needs of domestic readers to build and develop this model. in your own newspaper. Currently, VietnamPlus uses many strategies to achieve its goals: Periodical newsletters, information on specific topics (politics, economics, culture, science) to attract subscribers to target each audience. customers and targeting each specific customer group on Facebook, Google does not use advertising to bring its posted content to potential new customers. Vietnamplus aims to continue to produce high-quality, long-form content such as mega-story, long-form, and not only restrict the content to economic, financial, strategic, and business secrets, but also open it up. other fields such as technology, sports, entertainment, politics, new trends, forecast information… and collect fees from these articles. Some problems raised in electronic newspaper fee collection In the economic activities of journalism, in order to collect fees effectively, newsrooms must orient the production of content for paying readers to specialize in specific areas and must make worthy investments to improve the quality. posts. Big, hot issues come first, otherwise there would be no reason to convince people to subscribe. Because the readers who can afford to pay are often businesses, researchers, press agencies, people with high income and qualifications, they need information from experts, managers, comment on a topics that are important to them. A newsletter from the VietnamPlus e-newspaper Through polling and surveying the groups and individuals that buy information from VietnamPlus, they found that the news sold has a high content of information, going deep into a field or issue that public opinion and society are interested in. Such news they accept to pay for the source of information they are using. Through this, VietnamPlus also determined, selling news must focus on readers, must find a way to determine what their readers need. Readers will spend money when they really believe that they have valuable, quality sources. And the question is: how can we create many “goods” that are attractive enough to users, making them “pickpocket” to pay? Payers buy high-quality content, not cheap. Readers pay for content because it helps them stay informed and post about issues they care about. And readers appreciate the exclusive content they have access to more than ancillary benefits like promotional giveaways when they sign up. Paid readers send a clear signal that news outlets that want growth cannot cut costs. Acquiring a paid audience requires an investment in high-quality content and a focus on meeting the needs of the audience. It is not easy to convince readers to pay when they are used to free information, so VietnamPlus’s pioneering in this field is also to help readers get used to reading paid newspapers. money. Must-know content turns free readers into paying readers. Informative, insightful, specialized content motivates readers to withdraw, which is the key to retaining readers. It is also about turning the habits of readers into our habits, understandable that when readers accept to pay for an information, it means that it is the act of paying for their own habits. Therefore, VietnamPlus e-newspaper also focuses on the habits of its readers. Habits are the best way to increase engagement. In addition, a difficulty in selling news is due to technology limitations. When it was newly built to collect fees, VietnamPlus’s method was still limited to only using mobile phones from a network operator. Currently, payment gateways have been expanded, allowing a variety of other payment methods such as bank cards, e-wallets, QR codes… VietnamPlus is planning to upgrade the payment system. Moreover, the fact that copyright in Vietnam has been a difficult problem to solve for many years. A good article just published in a certain newspaper will immediately be copied in its entirety. If a newspaper has a lock on its special articles and only provides them to paying readers, it is also difficult, because a website that aggregates information only needs to spend a little money to read and ” collage”, then this information will no longer be “poisonous”. Because of these reasons, it is understandable that the trend of charging readers to read e-newspapers in Vietnam is prone to failure right from the start. Collecting money from online readers in Vietnam is very difficult nowadays, but if they want to change the revenue structure, press agencies have to start working. The most important thing is to protect copyright, not to let a good article be cut and pasted by dozens of other websites on your site comfortably. The locking of articles and invitations to buy online newspapers need to be carried out simultaneously in many newspapers to create a positive effect. In 2019, Vietnam’s online advertising revenue was estimated at 648 million USD, of which Facebook accounted for 275 million USD, Google 174.9 million USD, domestic units accounted for only 180.9 million USD.