Nation Begins Reviving Paywall On News Articles
As early as Monday, August 21, some users reported loading a premium news article only to be met by the following message "Register to continue reading this premium article"
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Nation Media Group (NMG) has begun silently reintroducing its paywall on its news content on Nation.Africa in a bid to turn around its financial woes, a few days after recording one of its worst-ever declines in profit.
As early as Monday, August 21, some users reported loading a premium news article only to be met by the following message "Register to continue reading this premium article" which prevented them from reading the content for free as they were used to.
Spot checks by this writer corroborated the users' findings, which compelled a user to create an account with their credentials as well as an option to link to their Google account. Once done, he or she can access the articles as per the norm.
A screenshot of a prompt requiring one to register before reading a Nation.Africa premium article. /NATION.AFRICA
However, sources at the Twin Towers-based media house who spoke to Viral Tea noted that the soft reintroduction of the paywall was part of a plan to fully restore its paywall whereby one has to pay a subscription before accessing the stories.
One source revealed that the registration, which was not required before to read premium articles, was implemented for the purposes of collecting emails from its visitors accessing its content for free before a fee is implemented in the coming weeks.
On August 10, the media house sent out a notice to its staff intending to revive the paywall which will however affect the prime stories and not all stories as was the case when it was introduced in 2021.
"We are implementing a hard paywall that will require customers visiting our site to subscribe and pay to access exclusive and premium content. Access to non-prime content will remain free. We have various membership plans; weekly, monthly or annually," read the statement in part.
"To ensure we deliver a superior experience and reward our premium members we shall offer them additional benefits, during their subscription period, which include advert-free reading experience, free breaking news SMS alerts, and free access to exciting gaming."
The paywall was viewed as Nation's idea of moving away from relying too much on advertising, and within its first year, it had netted Ksh5 million before it shelved the feature ahead of the 2022 general elections where Kenyans heavily consumed news content as they kept themselves up to speed with the polls.
Another source alluded to Viral Tea the move to reintroduce the paywall as a response to the decline in NMG's profits which saw the media house record a 98.8 per cent decline in net profit from Ksh247.8 million in the 2021/2022 financial year to Ksh2.9 million in 2022/2023.
According to financial documents released on Friday, August 18, the regional media powerhouse in East Africa blamed the decline in profits on the drastic rise in the cost of imported raw materials, particularly newsprint, and the depreciation of the Kenya Shilling against the US Dollar.
The board also attributed weak consumer spending, a rise in the price of basic commodities, and a hike in fuel prices and interest rates, as reasons behind its profit decline.
