Haymarket trials paywalls

Michael Heseltine's Haymarket Publishing, owner of magazines including Campaign, Stuff and FourFourTwo, has made its first foray into erecting paywalls around digital content. The company has introduced a model in its Asian operation, which is spearheaded by Media magazine – the equivalent to UK advertising title Campaign. Subscribers will get access to online articles for three days free before they are moved behind a paywall. Haymarket's paywall move in Asia comes as the Brand Republic website, the UK web portal for titles including Campaign, Marketing and online-only Media Week, relaunches its website, with senior management understood to be looking at a strategy to introduce some form of "metered" access to content. The strategy in Asia and the UK only currently concerns titles that operate in the media and marketing sectors. Haymarket also owns a significant number of consumer publications, whose dependence on display advertising revenue have seen them battered in the downturn. In Asia Haymarket is providing magazine subscribers with full digital access to a suite of four sites, two of which are new, covering media business in the Asia Pacific region as well as India. Haymarket said that the plan to put articles behind a paywall after several days meant the "continued provision of premium, exclusive content". In the UK the overhaul of Brand Republic is understood to include a push to get more non-subscribers to register details, valuable for marketing and subscription purposes, with the online site. A source said that new visitors might be limited to 10 to 20 free articles a month. Registration would provide free, unfettered access. It is thought that earlier this year plans were being developed to launch some form of pay strategy in the UK this month. However, one source said that the improving economic situation in the first half of the year means that any serious proposals have been shelved indefinitely. It is thought that any digital paywall strategy would not include news but would focus on access to valuable added content such as features, columns and supplements such as Campaign's annual A-List "who's who" of advertising. It is the first major overhaul of Brand Republic, which now features a rolling carousel that flicks through the top stories, in several years. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".