Newspapers Take Note: BillOReilly.com Offers Paid Content That Works

by Colby Hall | 9:41 am, September 8th, 2009

» 11 comments

Bill O’Reilly’s rise to cable news superiority has been well documented. And in the context of the increased influence and popularity of his Fox News co-hort Glenn Beck, O’Reilly’s claim of being non-partisan now seems less specious. But where is O’Reilly also dominating? In the pay-for-content game that nearly all newspapers have been wrestling with in the last few years. What is he doing so right?

As pointed out by new media guru Steve Outing, “this is exactly the model that many newspaper and magazine publishers have been talking about lately, though many are having trouble figuring out what they’ve got that they can charge for.”

O’Reilly’s cracked the code on this: premium members get benefits that include:

Bill’s exclusive critique of the night’s show, recorded by him immediately after the show ends.
Exclusive video clips.
Access to audio archives of The Radio Factor show.
Weekly backstage live chat with Bill exclusively for Premium members to ask him questions.
Access to exclusive photo albums of Bill with celebrities and doing his thing.
Priority e-mail. Your message to Bill will not get tossed in with all the other e-mail he gets, and
Premium members are promised “priority treatment and a guaranteed review.”

In all there are 16 benefits to being an O’Reilly Premium Member. So how can this apply to the Newspaper business? Outing explains thusly:

Actually, as the news industry ponders news membership models, creating Premium memberships that get you more from a favorite star journalist and access to the person could be worth paying for. As I reported here a few days ago, Men’s Health magazine turned its Jimmy the Bartender advice feature into a paid iPhone app; that’s sort of a premium membership, albeit a cheap one at $2.99 to buy the app and no recurring fees. Other magazines may be able to turn their star columnists into Premium memberships.

Even for newspapers I think this has potential. Consider a paid Premium membership for New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman for, say, $20 a year; or a Financial Times niche columnist Premium membership for $100 or more a year. Friedman might offer extra content like full video or audio interviews of the world leaders he interviews, and exclusive webcasts or live chats restricted to paying Premium members. The FT columnist, because of his focus on an arcane slice of the business world, can offer Premum members additional inside-baseball information and stats that business people will pay for. Ergo, a financial niche columnist might be worth more with the Premium Membership model than a rock-star columnist like Friedman, who covers more generic news topics.

This could even filter down to the local level. Could a newspaper reporter who covers city council and city politics have a Premium Membership that offered paying members extra insider info and reporting, in the way that inside-politics newsletter editors of decades past charged political junkies and people affected by local politics for their in-depth knowledge and digging?

The biggest distinction/advantage that O’Reilly has is his well developed cult of personality. Its the advantage of being one of the forefathers to the wildly successful sub-genre of “opinion journalism”. So while traditional newspapers don’t have a built-in audience designed by shared taste and mindset, they do have a built-in audience defined by region.

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Sharon Henry

I can see something like this working especially well for community online newspapers. Using an iTunes model, 99¢ for a six months subscription to High School sports, 99¢ for six months of a local columnist. Let the reader build their own niche online product. I imagine, once O’Reilly has the users credit card info, the subscription is automatically renewed.
http://www.uselessbeauty.com Vidiot

Plus, O’Reilly members get one free stalking of the perceived enemy of their choice! Jesse Watters has LOTS of free time.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-De-Rosa/503357744 Anthony De Rosa

If you make it as easy to buy content as it is to buy iPhone apps, I can see it working.
TfT

Bill O’Reilly plugged your site, by name spelled out with your web address and told his viewers about this article!

You should update your story with a clip from his show.!!!
Chudi

Saw ur site on O’reilly, and wanted to check it out. Nice article.
http://www.facebook.com/people/William-Welfare/1810223954 William Welfare

Bill gets the facts before reporting. Simple, he is a straight shooter, works hard to get balanced reporting.
ChrisNH

The ‘paid-for’ model is a horse that left the barn years and years ago. Those that (briefly) tried it were trampled by larger portals, who told the same stories and charged nothing. Newspapers pride themselves in being pseudo political activists. They like to think they help shape public perception with respect to political ideologies, although this is pretty much them believing their own press clippings. In truth, it’s the whole ideology thing that caused the demise of newspapers to begin with. Instead of news, they feasted on bias in order to see ‘helpful’ politicians rise and hurtful ones fall. And once a newspaper has chosen a side, it has pretty much said ‘Sayonara’ to any hope of collecting revenue from the other side. In the end, newspapers have their own little choirs they preach to. Will those choirs pony up subscription fees for content they can find elsewhere? Therin lies the rub. The fact that there’s a whole lot of talking about going to a ‘paid-for’ model and a whole lot less activity actually DOING it convinces me that it’s an idea that has more cost than benefit.
http://www.soundst.com locascioa

Though I have panned the idea of paid content in the past, there are some exceptions. The Wall Street Journal is a perfect example. What do the Journal and O’Reilly have in common? They both offer compelling and most importantly UNIQUE content that cannot be found anywhere else! The stories covered by all the print online media outlets are rarely unique and can usually be found in several places. Why would anyone pay for them when they can find them free elsewhere? Paint a compelling original picture and people pay to see it! Whether you agree with him or not, O’Reilly certainly paints a colorful picture…
seno3176

Your website was featured on No Spin Zone tonight and I checked it out. You seem to be very measured wich is very good. Keep up the good work.
This country need more people like you.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Dave-Martin/1705699176 Dave Martin

Bill O’Reilly is Reich-wing douchbag and just another Rupert Murdock sockpuppet.
shootfromthehip

Can I buy a loofah or erotic stories about how to properly seduce a hot producer (is that in O’reiilly Factor for Kids?) via phone sex at that website? If so, I’d be happy to pay a monthly fee!