paNOW.com to Stay Free
by: Karl Johnston, Publisher
Yesterday, you could catch up on local news and happenings for free at paNOW.com AND the website of the Prince Albert Daily Herald. Today, the Herald is making you pay after imposing a paywall for online readers. The free ride is over for Herald readers.
Here, at paNOW.com no news is good news: paNOW will stay free.
The problem for traditional brick and mortar newspaper publishers is rapidly declining readership. In Prince Albert daily circulation is down 40% in the past decade to about 5000 a day. It’s not that the paper has changed all that much but the readers have. Today’s younger readers – and by ‘younger’ I mean under 50 – prefer to consume their information now and online not yesterday and in print. Traditional newspaper readership has simply moved on.