Jul
31
“But here’s the truth, folks: Newspapers haven’t actually charged for news content since the 1830s. Up until then, most newspapers were subscription-only and cost about 6 cents a day (or about $1.20 in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation). By asking subscribers to bear the full cost of production, newspapers limited their audience to the few who could afford the luxury. That was actually OK for the time, because literacy rates were quite low anyway. But compulsory education raised literacy rates as the 19th century progressed, and in the 1830s publishers realized a new model to reach the growing market — the penny press. The New York Sun in 1834 sells for a penny, marking the end of newspaper’s charging readers the total cost of production Newspapers cut their price from 6 cents to just 1 cent (about 20-25 cents today), thus reaching a much broader circulation and finding advertisers would pay to reach that market. The first popular penny paper, the New York Sun, printed this motto at the top of every front page: “The object of this paper is to lay before the public, at a price within the means of every one, all the news of the day, and at the same time offer an advantageous medium for advertisements.” (source) Since then, for about 180 years, the retail price of a newspaper has never reflected the total cost of assembling and producing it. Any paper that tried to charge such a price (6x more) would lose circulation and be undercut by correctly priced competing papers.”
NewsFuturist: Newspapers: 180 years of not charging for content
