Major European Newspapers Behind Paywalls

The Berliner Morgenpost and the Hamburger Abendblatt have launched paywalls, and Le Figaro, a major French newspaper is expected to have its paywall ready later this month, reports Paidcontent.org.

Access to all content on morgenpost.de now costs 4.95 (4.32/$6.79) per month. A premium subscription to abendblatt.de costs 7.95 (6.93/$10.90) per month. Abendblatt.de has a mixture of free and premium content: it appears it charges extra for content specific to the Hamburg region, while making national news free. Subscriptions for both are renewed on a monthly basis.

The Times, Rupert Murdoch's flagship UK newspaper, is expected to have a paywall in the 2nd quarter of this year.

The good news for US newspaper companies is that they can learn important lessons from the early European newspaper paywall ventures.