Regional publishing group Tindle Newspapers has judged its experiment to introduce online charging a success, and plans to roll out the system to about 40 of its papers. The Surrey-based company, which publishes 220 titles across England and Wales, including the Cornish & Devon Post and the Surrey and Hants News, has now increased its projections of how much cash can be generated on the web. Over the summer, Tindle began a trial on six of its titles – three free papers and three paid-for titles – using online page-turning software PageSuite. The paid-for titles were offered on subscription, with readers paying by credit card or the online charging system Paypal for access. Tindle said the trial had been so successful that the cash generated from subscriptions soon exceeded expectations and the Paypal facilities had to be expanded. The company will now publish more than 100 of its titles online using PageSuite, with about 40 of them paid-for titles accessible via subscriptions through Paypal. Regional group Johnston Press has embarked on a similar trial, while Rupert Murdoch is preparing to put all online content from newspapers in his News Corporation empire, including the Times and the Sun, behind a paywall.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/09/paywall-tindle-newspapers-successful
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