San Francisco Chronicle Considers Paywall for Online Material
The Hearst Corporation is considering a paywall for sfgate.com, the online portal for the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Bay Citizen reports that staffers who have been briefed on the company’s plans said it is part of a “broad, new digital strategy for the paper.”
Hearst plans to roll out the paywall as part of a digital subscription plan for the paper’s new iPad app.
The Bay Citizen reports that while most of the details of the plan have not yet been released, “newsroom employees said that access to stories for non-subscribers would be sharply curtailed…. and the paper would likely establish a hard paywall, rather than a metered plan.”
The New York Times recently introduced a metered plan for its website, which allows readers to click on a certain number of articles before cutting off access.
Employees said they expect the plan to be rolled out by the end of April.
In a statement, San Francisco Chronicle President Mark Adkins wrote “The San Francisco Chronicle is planning to offer the newspaper’s content through an application for use on the iPad and other tablet devices.”
SFGate.com is among the nation’s top 10 newspaper websites.
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