…The Dallas Morning News in September 2012 did a survey of about 2,000 print subscribers… asking them at what digital price would they dump their print subscription. Would they dump that $30 print deal for a discounted digital subscription at $14.95, for example? Well, the scenarios bottomed out at $2.95. That is, the newspaper asked those print subscribers if they’d drop print for a digital product priced at one-tenth the price of their print deal. Only 5 percent of the respondents, recalls (CEO Jim) Moroney, responded that they’d bite on that offer. “I said to my economist,” says Moroney, “What’s going on? He said, ‘Butter is not a substitute for a car. They’re different things.’” Of the folks who’ve expressed an interest in the supplements from the New York Times and The Washington Post, Moroney says, “they’re not interested in accessing it online.”
Read the full piece at The Washington Post
