More important than ever before? Assessing readers’ willingness to pay for local news as a constituent for sustainable business models

ABSTRACT

In our study we explore sustainable business models for local newspapers by combining data from content analysis with data from a choice-based conjoint analysis and survey data from 160 readers of a German regional newspaper. Drawing from news value theory, we try to answer which content matters most to consumers of local newspapers, thus supporting local publishers’ development of marketable value propositions. Based on multivariate regression analysis, our results suggest that consumers value articles covering local topics the most. We also find evidence for interaction effects of quality perception and reading behaviour on the willingness to pay.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable business models
• value of proximity
• local and regional newspapers
• news value theory
• willingness to pay

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Aline Hofmann (B.A.) for assisting in the language editing of this paper and Johanna Radechowsky (M.A.) for the additional references.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In the following, we will use the term “local newspaper” resp. “local news” for referring to both local and regional newspapers resp. news.

2. Park et al. (2020) determine a ranking of local content categories, however, without linking them to their respondents’ WTP.

3. The data set is part of an encompassing study conducted from January to April 2018 that is described in more detail in Hansen (2019). The specific data set used in the present study has not been analysed before.

4. Some respondents had a lower limit due to the research design.

5. We further asked for ad perception and controlled for reading habits. The last part of the survey contained questions regarding personal characteristics of the respondents such as age, gender, education, career level and income.

6. R² = 0.21 for model 1 and 0.42 for model 2.

7. We also tested whether the variables might influence the outcome in a multiplicative way. However, we did not detect any significant effects except for the main effects.

8. See https://www.rums.ms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Udo Bomnüter

Udo Bomnüter is Professor of media management at Hochschule Macromedia, University of Applied Sciences (Berlin), and the managing director of Valerian Film, an independent film company. From 2011-2020, he was head of studies in Media and Communication Management at DEKRA University of Applied Sciences Berlin. Professor Bomnüter’s interdisciplinary research interests focus on business models in the media industries, media policy, transmediality, and innovative forms of communication. His contributions have been published in the International Journal of Arts Management (IJAM), the Handbook of State Aid for Film and in Literature/Film Quarterly (LFQ), among others.

Nele Hansen

Nele Hansen is Professor of media management at IU International University of Applied Sciences (Düsseldorf). Prior to joining the IU, she was a doctoral student and research assistant at the Chair of Marketing & Media Research at the University of Münster’s Marketing Center. From 2011-2014, she worked as an editor for the German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. Professor Hansen’s academic work focuses on news and social media, especially business models for news media in the digital age and challenges of social media marketing. Her research has been published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM) and has been awarded with the 2018 IJRM Best Paper Award.

Michael Beuthner

Michael Beuthner is Professor of journalism at SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences. He studied journalism and communication science, German studies, and psychology at the University of Münster. He then worked as a scientific assistant at the Institute for Applied Media Sciences (IfAM) at Leuphana University Lüneburg, and later at the University of Hamburg’s Institute of Journalism and Communication Sciences (IJK). In 2005, he joined Hamburg Media School as a media consultant and coordinator of the MA programme Journalism. From 2013-2020, Professor Beuthner was head of studies in Journalism and PR at DEKRA University of Applied Sciences Berlin. His research focuses on professional and quality standards of modern journalism, science, risk, and crisis journalism, new forms of communication, and media philosophy.

Ulf König

Ulf König is Head of IT Strategy and Innovation at HDI Global, an industrial insurer headquartered in Germany with worldwide operations. Previously he was a doctoral student and research assistant at the Chair for B2B Marketing at the University of Münster’s Marketing Center. He wrote his Master’s thesis on online news business models and readers’ willingness to pay at the Chair of Marketing & Media Research.

Thorsten Hennig-Thurau

Thorsten Hennig-Thurau is Professor of Marketing & Media at the University of Münster’s Marketing Center and Academic Director of the Center’s eXperimental Reality Lab XRLab@MCM. His work deals with the media and entertainment industries and how digitalization changes value creation. His work has been published in leading scholarly journals, including the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Academy of Management Journal as well as in transfer journals such as Harvard Business manager. He has received several awards, including best article awards from JAMS and the International Journal of Research in Marketing and a life-time award for his scholarly contributions from UCLA. Professor Hennig-Thurau has been listed among the most productive and influential marketing and business scholars both in Germany and globally; according to Google Scholar, his articles have been cited more than 32 thousand times.