Fair play to Haymarket – it’s set us a great example of the adage that readers will pay for quality specialist content…
The publisher’s Autosport.com says Monday-to-Wednesday buys this week for its £32.50-a-year premium subscription quadrupled from the same time last year – because it was reporting from Formula One testing sessions in Valencia.
Live commentary and high-res photos of Michael Schumacher’s return to the sport proved big drivers, says the site, which pulled 482,320 uniques over the three days – 40,000 more than Autosport.com clocked in a month the last time it filed an ABCe return in 2000. But it wasn’t just editorial – subscribers also get the laptimes and other stats they love in a premium-only database.
Autosport.com’s premium play, Autosport Plus, is simple and distinct – as well as premium indicators throughout the site, a red “Autosport Plus” box on the homepage clearly signifies which content is behind the wall; and, frankly, to motorsport fans (who can be as geeky as they can well-off), it seems well worth paying the mere £3.75 a month or £32.50 a year.
And Autosport needs this new stream – monthly print sales fell from 61,025 to 34,442 between 2000 and 2008, losing about 4,000 readers each year (ABC (NYSE: DIS) figs).
The upcoming F1 season is being eagerly anticipated, with a range of new drivers and teams, including YouTube-backed US F1. Publisher Haymarket recently retired Media Week and Revolution in print, and has since been playing musical chairs at exec level.