New report from EPS

As display advertising sales have fallen away over the last 5 years, online content players have been grappling with an array of different business models and with re-educating customers to pay for content which was previously free. Through case studies with four very different players in the market, the latest EPS Focus Report ìBusiness models for online content: balancing the bucksî :

examines how publishers across multiple sectors apply business models to their content;

looks at different business models and their target audiences, models which support print and online, and how to align payment with value;

considers learnings drawn from parallels or differences between the publishers in the case studies; and

evaluates the future of business models.



Business models considered include:

subscription

pay-per-view

advertising

syndication

content bundling

licensing

The enabling technologies of DRM and micropayments are also considered.

Key Findings:

Advertising continues to be an important source of revenue but subscriptions, one-off payments and a range of other revenue streams have grown in significance.

Signs of an advertising recovery are beginning to show, mainly driven by the rising popularity of search advertising.

Subscription models are becoming more pervasive, but recent predictions of rapid growth in paid-for online content may no longer be secure, since as the advertising dollars return some players may be tempted to offer high quality content for free in order to secure visits to their site.

As yet, the concept of bundled access to content has not taken hold outside academic publishing and the delivery of content to corporates. Take up in other areas will probably depend on more availability of premium content.

Pay-per-view models have not taken hold, partially due to fears of cannibalisation. However, if a balance between subscription and pay-per-view models could be found they could have particular use in the consumer mobile space where phone billing for content makes transactions easier.

Contrary to predictions, micropayment solutions have not become widespread as a means of payment.

Understanding buyer behaviour will become more important in order to balance the cost of the information with the value to the user.

For this EPS Focus Report, case studies were based on interviews with:

Rob Chambers, Publisher, Total Telecom

Frank Fellone, Deputy Editor, Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Mark Rowse, CEO, Ingenta

Tarek Eldin, CEO, Network Subscriptions

EPS Focus Reports take an in-depth look at key markets, developments and technologies to understand their current strategic significance and implications for future directions. Clients of the EPS Market Intelligence and Advisory Service have access to the full report online at