T.L. Hughes 753 Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Gannett Company, which owns two media properties in Phoenix: The Arizona Republic and NBC affiliate KPNX, is placing a paywall on its website AZCentral.com starting in September, the company announced Monday (August 13). The move wouldn't be noteworthy, if it weren't for the fact that KPNX produces content exclusively for the site, as the station does not have a separate website of its own. The vast majority of the comments regarding the announcment on its website is largely negative. Meredith Corporation's CBS affiliate KPHO is already jumping on the announcement as the station has now put up a banner on its website acknowledging their news content is free (it specifically reads "Don't Pay for News, CBS5AZ.com [not the actual domain, it redirects to KPHO.com] is free"), the station also did a story on the AZCentral paywall, with no mention of KPNX's involvement in the site. The subscriptions that will be available will vary and among them includes a "Full Access" digital-only subscription to access all content on AZCentral, which will cost $10 per month. While placing paywalls on newspaper websites is not an unusual practice as a growing number of papers have instituted such subscription methods in otder to keep the newspapers afloat, this is the first instance in which such a paywall involves a television station as well, due to the fact that most newspaper/television combos have different websites (the only other instance I know of where a website structured like KPNX/Arizona Republic's exists between a TV station and newspaper is the St. Joseph News-Press in St. Joseph, Missouri, which also serves as the website for its newly-launched sister television outlet, Fox affiliate KNPN-LD, although KNPN simply has little more than a splash page on that site). Gannett might want to consider separating KPNX from the AZCentral website and give the station a website of its own featuring news content from the station's own staff in order to allay viewers disgruntled with the move of AZCentral.com to a subscription-based service, but that remains to be seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoffrey 779 Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 It's not entirely the same as they're not broadcast stations but the News 12 channels in the New York tri-state area have a paywall for access to news12.com for those who don't have Cablevision. (Cablevision also owns Newsday, though it has its own website.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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