Davos 2020: Nielsen’s David Kenny Says People Are Willing To Pay More For News Than Entertainment

People are willing to pay more for news than entertainment and believe the quality of content is higher when it’s paid for, according to David Kenny, chief executive officer of Nielsen Holdings Plc.

“There’s a declining trust in total as there are concerns of fake news,” Kenny told BloombergQuint on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum 2020 in Davos, Switzerland. “But when they think it’s better when they pay for high-quality news and (are) certainly willing to pay for news much higher than for entertainment.”

Globally, around 38 percent of the surveyed audience consume only subscribed news content, according to the initial insights inferred from Nielsen’s Platform for Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture report. The figure stood at 30 percent for entertainment content as majority of the audience opted for both free and paid channels.

News subscribers in India are currently paying Rs 173.50 a month and are willing to increase their spending to up to Rs 346 per month, the report said. For entertainment, Indians are shelling out Rs 132.50 per month and the maximum they are willing to pay was Rs 243.70 per month.

Benefit Of Micro-Transactions

There are also opportunities for content and news organisations to widen their subscriber base through micro-transactions—paying for a single news story or an episode—in markets like India and China, according to the Nielsen report.

“That’s the way the economy has been working as consumers pay as they go,” Kenny said, adding that cheap internet accessibility—brought forward by firms like Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.—are making such transactions much easier.

WATCH | Nielsen’s David Kenny on status of subscription-based media