Effective Friday, Dec. 13, a full-priced subscription to The Bartlett Express will allow unlimited, free access to The Express website, bartlett-express.com.
Non-subscribers will be asked to pay for frequent use of the paper’s digital products, and for the first time there will be a digital-only subscription offered.
Asking readers to pay for digital content produced by The Bartlett Express staffers will help ensure revenues sufficient to continue supporting a strong news-gathering operation, said Journal, Inc. CEO Clay Foster.
“We believe our content is of value to our readers, digital as well as print, and producing that content is expensive,” Foster said. “We╒re confident our customers will understand the necessity of this change.”
Current subscribers of The Bartlett Express should click on “Subscriptions” on the navigation bar in the upper right corner of the bartlett-express.com home page for a one-time activation of their free all-digital access, which includes the paper’s replica electronic edition.
Non-subscribers will find three choices:
- Total digital access, the website and E-edition, at $20/year
- E-edition only at $15/year
- Website only at $15/year
Visitors to bartlett-express.com will be allowed five free articles per month before they are asked to subscribe.
In charging for access to its digital products, The Bartlett Express joins a growing newspaper industry trend. Many newspapers in Mississippi and the region have some form of digital pay model as online audiences continue to grow.
“Our digital audience is growing, in addition to our print circulation, and revenue from that audience is necessary to continue to provide the volume and quality of news and information our readers have come to expect,” said Graham Sweeney, managing editor for Journal West 10.
