How the Economist looks at the advertising downturn

In the magazine sector the Economist is one of the success stories and over at Paid content they report that its publisher has not yet abandoned the idea of a paywall.

The news mag’s site already charges for stories over a year old and, publisher Paul Rossi told our Future Of Business Media conference, that could be just the right model for a looming recession: ”The growth in online advertising is slowing. Is this the return to paid content online, because advertising becomes less a driver for the business? It will be be interesting to see if paid content comes back online because the model is changing.”

The publication has a cetrtain distaste for ads

vowing never to mix ads and editorial on the same print page: “We start with the premise that a reader is paying us a substantial amount of money for our magazine.”