by Herman Manson (@marklives) Soon readers of the three Media24 Afrikaans language daily newspapers Die Burger, Beeld and Volksblad, will have to pay for the privilege to read news in their home language. They announced the arrival of a paywall, a new tablet app and the imminent arrival of new look websites for all three papers on their sites this morning. The paywalls will take effect as soon as the new websites come out of beta.
According to the announcement the papers will also adopt a ‘digital first’ strategy which will see them breaking news on their sites (does this mean they will now try to compete with Nuus24, the Afrikaans language version of News24?). Business Day recently made the move to adapt a digital first strategy as well as a paywall.
The statement on Beeld’s website said its publishers had hoped that growth in ad revenue would keep the site free but that online ad revenue proved much less than that of the print editions. All three papers have a strong regional bent that the publishers hope will convince readers to part with their money.
The sites will offer content bundles to subscribers in future. Print subscribers receive access to the printed paper, the mobile app and the website. Readers also have the option of subscribing to the stand alone digital bundle, consisting of the website and app, at a rate of R99 a month (R1180 a year).
Non-subscribers will be allowed access to 20 free stories a month and people accessing stories via social media will be able to read them within it counting to their 20 free stories.
The beta version of the new websites mixes large images, a trend in a web publishing, with a blog like content layout. It gives over substantial space to multi-media.
Initial reader reaction has been mixed. Some readers said they would be willing to pay for fresh news in Afrikaans while others pointed out that they are perfectly capable of reading English on other, free news services.
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