Do People Really Want Premium Content on the Web?
I have been thinking a lot lately about premium content on the web. Initially, I dismissed the developments by companies like AOL and Demand Media to create mass amounts of timely and mostly disposable content as trite and completely uninspired. The more I think about it, though, the important question isn’t whether this content will be premium (it won’t), but whether people even want premium content on the web.
What is premium content anyway?
Let’s look at an offline example first.
This past Saturday during the blizzard, I watched nearly all of season 3 of The Wire. This is some of the most inspired, well-written, intelligent television ever created. The Wire is premium content at it’s finest. What The Wire was not, however, was quick, easy, or cheap to produce. Additionally, while the show has developed a sizable cult following in recent years, it was not instantly popular or loved by a mass audience. In the same way that The Wire was not easy or quick to produce, it also wasn’t always easy to watch or digest for some people. Watching this show took a desire to pay attention and a certain commitment to be emotionally involved in each episode for a full 60 minutes. It also required a subscription to a premium TV channel.
On the other end of the television content spectrum, are countless garbage shows that millions of people watch every week. But why? Why do we watch these shows? Just like they are cheap and easy to produce and have mass appeal, these shows offer a simple, cheap viewing experience. We don’t become invested in the characters and when the show ends we don’t care what happens to these people. Cheap television gives us a quick laugh, an escape from real life and doesn’t ask anything more from us.
So what does any of this have to do with the web? Well, just like HBO struggled to keep The Wire on air as long as it did, content producers on the web are struggling to monetize their work and keep their sites alive and profitable. Right now there is a chasm developing between sites like WSJ and Reuters who want to charge for premium content and producers like AOL and Demand Media who are focused on churning out cheap content, ad nauseum. And somewhere in the middle are news sites, entertainment sites, and bloggers who are trying to eek out a living based on the ever-eroding CPM.
What do the people want?
As I often tell clients, you can learn a lot about what people are interested in online by their search patterns.
Google Zeitgeist also offers some very interesting insights into the fastest rising and fastest falling searches of the year. Most of the keywords people were searching in 2009 were related to entertainment and gossip, not things that usually lend themselves to premium content.
Does this mean people don’t want premium content online?
No, I don’t believe that is the case. As with any form of media, the mass audience will always gravitate towards simple, cheap, fleeting entertainment. In 2010 and the years to come, however, I believe there will be more niche audiences that will embrace premium content on the web. This won’t just happen on subscription sites like WSJ, but will happen anywhere that great content exists.
Premium content has a future on the web, but it lies in direct opposition to junk content. As more niche sites continue to deliver amazing content, they will win new audiences that have grown tired of the cheap grasping at pageviews by the previous purveyors of premium content.
If you are producing great content, keep doing it. Don’t take the easy, cheap way out. Premium content will be rewarded even if it isn’t beloved by the masses.