New deal for Salon.com readers

Salon.com took its charging scheme a step further this week by forcing non-subscribers to view a sponsor's multiple-screen advert in return for an 18-hour pass to the site.

Salon, which has run up an US$80 million debt since its launch in 1995, admitted that the move was designed to help it make ends meet.

In a note to readers on the site this week, editor David Talbot said: "Even in the glory days of online publishing, advertising alone could not pay the rent. Now, with the entire media industry still suffering an advertising swoon, it's even more impossible to make ends meet on adverts alone."

Salon first introduced subscription charges of US$18.50 a year in April 2001, giving access to content with adverts. For content without adverts, users paid US$30. Non-subscribers still had access to 80 per cent of the site's content for free. In November 2002 it began offering a day pass to its premium content, in return for compulsory viewing of a four-page click through advert from its sponsor Mercedes-Benz.

Now non-subscribers wanting to view any of Salon's original content can only get an 18-hour pass by agreeing to view another sponsor's multiple-screen advertisement. Wire stories from Associated Press will remain free.

Don Hazen, writing for AlterNet, said: "This is an historic moment for the web. If you buy a daily paper you pay 50 cents to a buck a day, not to mention several bucks on Sundays. The cheapest newspaper buyer is paying $125 a year and yet Salon only wants $30 from you, and only $18.50 if you can tolerate the adverts. So what's the problem?

"Seems like a fair deal... especially with no adverts. Say I go to Salon twice a week for a year; that's 100 visits, which equals 30 cents a day. It's a no-brainer. I say: 'Sign up as fast as you can!' We need Salon solvent (as well as maybe another five sites that may need to be subsidised by readers as well). How much do you give PBS, NPR, Pacifica? Salon is clearly as important."

Sources:
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/1573421
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15016

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