The Star to launch digital subscription
Monday October 29, 2012 By John Cruickshank
In a significant transition for our newspaper and our popular website, the Toronto Star will launch a paid-subscription program in 2013 for full access to all the stories and features on our website, thestar.com.
This move will provide a new source of revenue for the Star that will help support our ability to provide readers of both our print and online editions with the best and most comprehensive package of news and information in Canada.
Under the plan, most print subscribers to the Toronto Star will receive free full access to thestar.com’s content, wherever and however they want.
Complete details of the program, including how to register and how much we will charge, will be released in the coming months.
At the same time, we will be introducing new and innovative features on thestar.com, designed to provide a rich, multimedia experience that will satisfy the interests of readers and address the needs of advertisers.
We will have more stories, videos, podcasts and interactive social media features on the enhanced website.
In addition, we will expand our award-winning journalism both in our daily print edition and on our website. For example, last month we created four new full-time reporting beats: global economics, environment, global health as well as science and technology.
As our digital content evolves and becomes more extensive, we believe it is necessary to supplement our print and online circulation and advertising revenues with digital subscription revenues.
These additional revenues will strengthen our ability to invest in quality journalism, both in print and online, and provide the high quality of news, information and opinion that our readers throughout the Greater Toronto Area and across Canada have come to expect from the Star.
They will also allow the Star to bolster its long-standing focus on delivering accurate local, national and international news that matters to our readers.
Our news team, the largest in Canadian newspapers, will continue to deliver groundbreaking investigative features, in-depth news coverage and respected analysis on the important news events that affect our daily lives.
In making this move, the Star will be joining many major North American newspapers, such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, in introducing a pay model to their websites.
In Canada, the Globe and Mail started charging up to $20 a month for full access to its online content effective last Monday. Also, four newspapers owned by Postmedia Network Canada Corp., namely the National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Province and Vancouver Sun, all started asking readers in August to pay for online content. Postmedia announced last week that the remaining papers in its chain will ask readers to pay for online content, starting in the new year.
We will keep all our readers fully informed about our plans and will provide full details to readers, both in print and online, well in advance of the program’s formal launch in 2013
