Vital Stats One in five consumers would pay small fee for web content

Continental Research surveyed 500 online readers of newspapers and magazines, to see if and how much consumers would be willing to pay for articles online.

A majority (63%) said they would not pay to read their favourite articles online. However, 21% said they would be prepared to pay a small individual fee - known as a micropayment - for each article they wished to read.

Encouragingly for publishers looking to charge for online content, 11% said they would happily pay a larger amount to get access to the whole publication online.

Continental also asked how much respondents would pay to read their favourite online columnists: 35% would definitely or probably pay 2p per article.

In further findings, 26% of 16 to 34-year-olds were prepared to make micropayments, compared to 18% of those aged over 35.