Newsday may want to rethink their pay-to-read plan. The Long Island based newspaper, which in October launched a pay wall, meaning people would have to sign up and pay $5 a week ($260 a year) to get unlimited access to the website, has registered a total of just 35 users in the three months since its inception. Yep, 35.
No One Wants To Pay To Read Newsday
↵↵That astoundingly low figure was revealed in a newsroom-wide meeting last week by publisher Terry Jimenez when a reporter asked how many people had signed up for the site. Mr. Jimenez didn’t know the number off the top of his head, so he asked a deputy sitting near him. He replied 35.
↵Michael Amon, a social services reporter, asked for clarification.
↵“I heard you say 35 people,” he said, from Newsday’s auditorium in Melville. “Is that number correct?”
↵Mr. Jimenez nodded.
↵↵It’s almost as though James Dolan, Chairman of the Board of Cablevision, the paper’s owner, can’t do anything right. See also: Knicks, New York. (The relaunch of the Newsday site cost around $4 million; with the 35 subscribers, the paper has grossed about $9,000.)
↵And a brief reminder: Newsday is not the same as Newsweek.
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