Barely half of U.S. newspaper publishers think charging for content will work

Research for the American Press Institute has found a real gulf between newspaper publishers who think the public will pay for online content and those who aren't so sure. As reported in Allan Mutter's Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, only 51% of publishers think pay walls will fly. The other 49% either fear that pay walls will fail or just aren’t sure.

The research was carried out with 118 papers of all sizes across the U.S. and 4,000 consumers were polled separately online by a number of papers.

While 68% of the publishers responding to the survey said they thought readers who objected to paying for content would have a difficult time replacing the information they get from newspaper websites, 52% of polled readers said it would be either “very easy” or “somewhat easy” to do so.