ESPN The Magazine To Charge For Online Access

ESPN The Magazine has begun charging for access to its online content.

The magazine announced on its website that its online version, ESPNTheMag.com was merging with the ESPN Insider service, which is available for $6.95 a month, or $39.95 a year for premium sports content.

"As of Friday June 5, ESPNTheMag.com ceased to exist as we know it, but the site’s signature pieces and voice continue to live on the Insider page," the magazine site says. Print subscribers can still access magazine articles on the Insider for free.

Gary Hoenig

ESPN Publishing general manager Gary Hoenig toldBusiness Week that it is a strategy that other publishers should consider. "Why is it, in this business, we are apologetic when asking [consumers] to pay for what we give them online?" he asks. "It’s not like people in the milk business who think ‘we should give it away for free-we can make money on the cartons.’"

The Insider currently has 350,000 paying subscribers, according to executives familiar with the numbers, and its parent site ESPN.com is still free online.

Hoenig says that the main part of the strategy is to cut the 2.1 million-circulation magazine’s reliance on ads. He also says that a subscribing customer is more valuable to marketers than those who jump from site to site.

"There is too much content" for advertisers to monetize, he says. "But there is an audience that is staying here and going to stay engaged."