We pay for food and water, clothing and shelter. We pay fees and taxes. We always pay back our enemies, and sometimes our friends’ forgiveness and love. Some even pretend to know the perfect places to shop for happiness. But what about online journalistic information? Adevărul Holding, one of the most important Romanian media companies, announced this week that all its web content will start being charged by the end of the year.

In 2005, Rupert Murdoch predicted that advertising would be the main financial source to sustain the online journalistic content. Then, the cloudy horizon made him change his prophecy, stating that media can make money on the Internet throughout itself: if people want to get news online, they will have to pay for it. Various newspapers, mostly financial, such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, have already instituted digital subscriptions. The New York Times also charges per article for premium content in its archives. Dinu Patriciu, the owner of Adevărul Holding, motivated his decision to charge the online content by saying that Romanian media should follow the global tendency. Slightly risky, really crazy or just fair enough?

Some specialized Romanian media outlets, such as Academia Caţavencu or Gsp.tv have already been charging users for their web content. But are Romanians willing to pay for online generalist journalism? Although it seems a reasonable solution for journalists, experts consider that the market is not prepared for this change and estimate a big loss of readers for Adevărul Holding, unless other media companies adopt the same measures. It is certainly not a short-term process. Users’ perceptions of what should and should not be free are not set in stone, but it takes time to change the consumers’ behavior, which is influenced by what producers charge for a product.

Therefore, it is obvious that, having free online journalistic information until now, customers didn’t attach so much value to it. Furthermore, Adevărul Holding publishes free evening local newspapers, distributed in the major cities. Readers are used to this situation and any change is considered not worthy. Producers are challenged to find the magic formula to convince them the opposite.

Moreover, business models must be adapted to the structure of the paid online. The pay-per-view model, proposed by Murdoch seems one of the most efficient until now. The reader pays only for what he is interested in. Experts from City University of New York stated as well, that a partial-pay business model, with 80% free and 20% paid content, can be more advantageous than the 100% paid model. All over the world, media companies still make experiments. For Romanians, it will be even harder to charge the online content, as people are not used to shopping online.

Romanian web journalism is the baby sister of an underage media system. Although it’s resourceful it cannot compare to foreign ones, already mature. The experience missing cannot be replaced by anything. Consequently, Romanians cannot follow the trend, without finding methods to adapt it to our own reality. It would be just a childish attempt to walk straight, wearing mother’s high heel shoes. Hopefully, looking into the mirror time by time will help us see what we are really ready for and improve things in order to grow up.

Diana-Adela Ionita/LaSpecula.com

(the 6^th of June 2010)