Sydney Morning Herald announces massive subscription price hike
The Sydney Morning Herald has delivered a massive price hike to its readers, informing subscribers that their monthly rates will go up by as much as 17% in some cases.
“So that we can keep bringing you the best news and opinion in the country, your subscription price will increase to $43.20 per month from your next invoice,” reads an email to a subscriber with a digital subscription, which includes delivery of the two weekend Herald papers.
The previous price for this package was $36.80, and the cheapest way to get open access to the Sydney Morning Herald digital site at the time of signing up was to bundle your sub with weekend newspaper/Harvey Norman catalogue delivery.
When questioned on the reasons for such a big increase, a representative from the Herald cites a litany of woes: increasing costs in delivering journalism, salaries, technological infrastructure costs, and logistical expenses of printing and distributing physical newspapers, all of which have increased at a rate higher than general inflation.
The Sydney Morning Herald last increased the price of digital subscriptions in 2023 and bundles in 2022.
When asked if there were cheaper digital-only subscriptions available, given the rising costs of raw materials for printing was cited as part of the justification for the 17% price increase, the subscriber was offered a half-price six-month subscription in turn, a saving of $21.60 a month.
Not bad, even if you have to recycle those weekend papers yourself.
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I subscribe to the SMH currently, mainly to support their investigative journalism.
$43 per month for SMH
$64 per month for AFR
$25 per month for Netflix (just downgraded quality due to price rise & but must stay ad-free)
$18 per month for Disney
$13 per month for AppleTV
$14 per month for Spotify
$15 per month for Stan
$10 per month for Prime (recently selected ad-free for $2.99 extra)
We are f***ed!
Why is there such churn they ask themselves? Because no one (who actually checks their various auto-renews) can afford all of this.
Best strategy is to go into your Apple account every so often and cancel all subscriptions and then re-subscribe if you have to.
Now THAT is the way to secure readers in a declining period. Same as the FTA TV stations reducing their production and replacing the time-slots with lots of el-cheapo re-runs.
We all knew there was a cliff-edge coming but accelerating to the cliff’s edge is a mighty strange strategy.
Hot tip for Nine and NewsCorp. Keep the people with egos tied to subscription revenue in check. Keep your prices actually reasonable and you’ll retain subscribers as well as up-to-date data you can also monetise serving more relevant ads too.
I recently called Nine to cancel my subscription as was coming off a 50% promotion.
Whilst I enjoy the content I decided the full price to be too high and I’ll get my news elsewhere. Fortunately the lady on the other end was quick to agree to extend the rate for another 6 months. So, I’m staying for now.
The AFR sub is eye-wateringly expensive.
The Australian sits at $40 per month
I got the email from SMH subscriptions last week informing me of this price rise. I emailed back and questioned why, as a loyal subscriber of many years, I would be charged more per annum than a new customer. I advised I would be cancelling my subscription. I then got a follow up email offering me a half price subscription for six months, no lock in. I would have walked if they hadn’t offered me this discount.
Someone is being lied to,whether it’s the subscriber or the deliverers.
I have worked for one of the distribution companies for 3 yrs as a contract deliverer,in 3 yrs we have never had a rise in our contract delivery fee,what subscribers need to know is that every 3 months the costings are reviewed and every time the fees get reduced so for them to say logistics of delivering has helped t contribute to cost increases needs to be questioned.
Does this mean journalists will be getting paid more?