Staying informed is going to cost a bit more, as two major news organizations have announced plans to begin charging visitors for access to their websites.
CNN, which is one of the biggest news sites online, is launching a paywall for unlimited access to the site, setting the price at $3.99 per month. That won’t impact casual visitors to the site, who only access a few stories per month, but after users see an undisclosed number of free articles, they’ll be prompted to subscribe.
The paywall launched Tuesday and will be expanded in the months to come, the organization said.
Meanwhile, wire service Reuters, which has been free to readers since 1995, is instituting a $1 per week charge that will roll out in the U. S. and Europe in the coming weeks and months, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Tech outlet The Verge is also reportedly considering a paywall.
The new business models for the sites come as the news industry looks to shore up revenues as income from advertising on sites is less lucrative than in decades past. (Fortune launched a paywall for its site in 2020, with three subscription tiers.)
“This new subscription plan ensures Reuters can expand the reach of its award-winning coverage at an affordable price, while allowing us to further invest in our reporting and products for subscribers,” Reuters President Paul Bascobert said in a statement.
CNN makes the majority of its income through its cable operations, but as legacy television continues to see declines, the company’s bottom line has been impacted. Previous efforts to develop a streaming product called CNN+ failed—as the company’s new parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, canceled the network just weeks after it launched.
Consumers have resisted subscriptions so far, with just 21% of readers in the U.S. paying for any sort of online news. News outlets are hoping that means a broad potential market, but they also face growing competition from social media outlets, where users share headlines, but not details of a story.
