(CelebrityAccess) – Publisher Condé Nast announced this week that it will be moving all of its titles behind digital paywalls by the end of 2019.
The move will affect brands including Vogue, Teen Vogue, GQ, Bon Appétit, Golf Digest, Architectural Digest, and Pitchfork. Three of its titles, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Wired, are already behind “metered paywalls,” which allow free access to four articles a month before requiring a subscription to continue.
Pamela Drucker Mann, Condé Nast’s chief revenue and marketing officer, told The Wall Street Journal, that she advocated for the move towards metered paywalls, and that she doesn’t expect any impacted titles to lose their digital audience.
“When you put a price tag on something, that must mean you have confidence in the product,” said Drucker Mann to the Journal, which was the first to report the move.
While it isn’t clear yet how the new paywalls will operate, Condé Nast Chief Executive Bob Sauerberg told Fashionista that they’d likely differ from site to site.
“The paywalls at each title will not be a one-size fits all model. Just as we did for each of the brands currently behind paywalls, we will let consumer demand and engagement dictate how each brand develops their paid content strategy. Some brands may have specific content that will be gated, and some will have a wider metered paywall. Every brand is distinct, and every brand’s paywall will be its own distinct product.”
While it has been reported that Condé Nast lost $120 million in 2017, statistics from measurement firm Comscore Inc, suggest that The New Yorker and Wired both saw their online audiences grow about 12% after the paywall went up. Vanity Fair’s audience reportedly shrank by approximately 3%, so we’ll have to wait and see which way it goes.
