That’s the message from Robert Picard, director of the Oxford University’s Reuters Media Institute, delivered by Skype to Digital Media Asia delegates.

Discussing ‘the art of pricing’ and the issue of whether or not to charge for content, he reminded delegates that they needed to “provide something extra”.

And that digital readers expected more than was required from offline media such as newspapers. Expectations included analysis, connections, better graphics and video. “Those expectations have to be met,” he says.

Usability was another expectation, and he warned, “We are giving that up to aggregators, which is not a good situation.”

The good news is that paid apps were gaining acceptance, with willingness to pay affected by issues such as platform and competition, as well as convenience. “Large legacy players have the advantage over less strong brands, which sometimes means that only a few can monetise their content,” he says. Some large players were now gaining 15-25 per cent of their revenue from digital, and had audiences which were five to ten times as large as in print, and “some of these benefits” were trickling down to medium and small players as well.

“Pay walls reduce traffic, but that’s not always bad if the overall effect is an increase in revenue.”

His key message is one publishers are hearing with greater frequency: That they need to focus more on customer needs: “It’s not ‘how do we make more money’ but ‘how do we serve customers better’. If you do that, the money problem will take care of itself,” he says.