Time Magazine has decided to remove the paywall. The American news medium wants to attract a larger and younger audience and makes all content free, including the digital archive that has been built up over the past 100 years.
In April, Time CEO Jessica Silbey announced that the paywall will be removed on June 1, 2023. Time has 1.3 million subscribers to the magazine, about 250,000 digital subscribers and had a paywall since 2011. According to Silbey, the decision to make all articles available for free was made both from the business side and from a strong desire of the editors. “The opportunity to build a bigger, younger and more diverse audience globally is very important,” Silbey said.
New editor-in-chief Time
Time has a new editor-in-chief since April. Sam Jacobs (37) is the youngest editor-in-chief in Time Magazine’s 100-year history and has a strong focus on digital journalism. His plan is to make more digital productions, supported by advertisers, for the website, the app and social media.
Quartz is also discontinuing the paywall
Time Magazine is not the first. The American opinion platform Quartz also stopped the paywall last spring. Now, a year later, this strategy has not worked out quite well. According to an analysis in Ad Week Quartz’s number of visitors fell from 3 million in 2022 to 1.3 million in the first quarter of 2023. A decrease in reach, despite the fact that visitors can view more content.
Earning a digital subscribers is hard
Many publishers are looking for balance in their publishing strategy. On the one hand, media brands want to earn from subscribers, but that proves to be a challenge for many magazines, especially when it comes to digital subscribers. On the other hand, as a publisher you can decide to give away content for free, aim for a wider reach and earn from advertising revenue. Time opts for the latter model and combines advertising revenue with revenue from events and licenses. “We continue to look for revenue models during our digital transformation,” says Sibley in an interview with Axis. “Part of this ‘journey’ is getting a better understanding of our users’ behavior and engagement to make sure we’re on the right track.”
Large free content platforms are going bankrupt
Time magazine’s decision to say goodbye to the paywall stands in stark contrast to news of Vice Media’s bankruptcy in May 2023 and the ongoing financial problems of major online content platforms, such as BuzzFeed. Vice Media was a textbook example for many years; a thriving media company with a free access strategy (free access for users) that according to Quote in the heyday of digital media, around 2017-2018, was valued at $5.7 billion. The New York Times reports that negotiations are currently underway with creditors to sell Vice for $225 million.
Online traffic is declining
It is therefore not surprising that some doubt whether the free access model will still hold up in the current media landscape. Especially now from recent research from echo box shows that 47% of international publishers are concerned about declining traffic online. Media brands such as Quartz and Time Magazine are therefore being watched with interest to see whether their strategic choices ultimately pay off.