Lewiston Sun Journal website deploys pay meter
The Lewiston Sun Journal has become the second newspaper website in Maine to deploy a pay meter, which allows visitors 10 free clicks per month to view certain articles.
The paper reported it is now calling paying readers “membership subscribers,” adding monthly drawings, free quarterly classified ads and a $100 ad space donation for certain members, depending on membership levels. The pay meter model has also been deployed by The Times Record in Brunswick. Other papers in Maine, like the mid-coast VillageSoup group of papers, which includes the Camden Herald, the Courier Gazette in Rockland and the Republican Journal in Belfast, use a strict paywall for its online articles.
The pay meter model, allowing limited access to readers, has been deployed by The New York Times, which saw profits in the second quarter of this year, attributed in part to digital subscriptions offsetting declining advertising revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Sun Journal first launched its new website Monday, but technical difficulties postponed the debut to Tuesday evening.
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