The Reuters Institute’s annual Digital News Report typically prompts some sobering headlines for publishers, and this year was no exception. One was that 53% of consumers are willing to pay for news in some capacity, which was seemingly interpreted by the report’s authors as bad news for publishers. Another was that 41% of consumers said they pay less than “full price” for their subscriptions.
“We find that the tendency to offer discounts has resulted in a significant proportion of subscribers not paying full price,” the report noted, which prompted headlines like “Remarkably few digital news subscribers pay full price.”
But is it really remarkable that 41% of news consumers are on discounted rates? What’s a healthy portion for a growing market, exactly? What does “full price” actually mean, and what portion of consumers know if they’re paying it or not?