Dear loyal Richmond BizSense readers,
Two years ago, we put the extensive BizSense news archive behind our BizSense Pro paywall, knowing that our years’ worth of local business news and intel had a shelf life beyond just the day a particular story is published.
It turned out our hunch was right and today thousands of you pay to access our 17 years’ worth of news.
Now, we’re announcing further changes to how our news and data archives are viewed.
Presently, all BizSense news stories are free for anyone to read for the first 30 days after their publication, after which they go behind the paywall. As of last week, we’ve tweaked that free window down to 24 hours.
That means any BizSense story will still be free for anyone to read within the first 24 hours it’s published. To read those stories any time after that, plus the tens of thousands of news and data posts in the archive, you’ll need to be a BizSense Pro subscriber.
Monthly subscriptions are $35, annual plans are $125 and custom corporate plans also are available.
It bears repeating: This does not mean that the news you’ve come to rely on since 2008 will be completely locked down. You’ll still have 24 hours to read each story each day, and the fastest and most direct way to do that is to make sure you’re a subscriber to the free BizSense Daily Newsfeed.
That’s our morning email blast with 25,000 subscribers and it is, as always, free to subscribe to and receive each weekday morning at 7 a.m.
In addition to the news archive, BizSense Pro subscribers also get access to the following premium data sections:
Development Tracker, a neighborhood-by-neighborhood collection of interactive maps showing you all the new real estate projects that are in the works, underway and recently completed across the region
The Docket, a weekly roundup of business-related court cases from around the region (published every Thursday)
The Pipeline, a weekly commercial real estate roundup of sales and leases from local brokerages (Fridays)
New Business Licenses, a weekly list of info on the region’s newest businesses (Fridays)
Foreclosures, a weekly list of all the upcoming foreclosure auctions scheduled in the region (Mondays)
The Agenda, a weekly summary of what’s up for consideration at local government meetings (Mondays)
Breaking Ground, our twice-monthly building permits report (every other Wednesday)
The Pitch, a twice-monthly showcase of the work done by local ad/marketing agencies (every other Tuesday)
The DeedBook, our twice-monthly list of local real estate transfers (every other Friday)
The R&D Dept., the twice-monthly summary of patents issued to local inventors (every other Wednesday)
Trading Day, the twice-monthly report of SEC filings posted by local publicly traded companies (every other Thursday)
For those of you who already are paid subscribers, nothing will change for you and your account.
For those of you who have enjoyed BizSense news for free over the years, we thank you for your loyal readership and for your continued patronage as we embark on making subscriptions a more important source of revenue in the future.
Those subscriptions will help us toward our goal of growing the BizSense newsroom. We plan to add a new reporter in the near future, making our news ranks deeper than they’ve ever been. It’s a necessary step to have increased manpower to keep up with all that’s happening in our growing region.
We also have a new and improved subscriber support department. For any technical or billing questions, or to set up a corporate membership plan, please email [email protected].
I think this is a mistake. As a pro subscriber I think the value in what you provide is tremendous but this is a step in the wrong direction. Happy to provide additional feedback. You guys at Bizsense all have my contact info.
Please reconsider! One DAY?? I am a pro subscriber, and I intend to continue. But locking an article behind a paywall after 24 hours makes the subscription worth less to everyone, since it makes the audience for articles i might share MUCH smaller. One week….at least!
“Tweaking”? From 30 days to ONE day? I suspect this will not have the effect you intend it to….
I still won’t pay for pro, I will just turn to other avenues to get this information.
Goodbye – it was nice reading you while I could!
I am thinking 24 hours is a bit short. There are many other sites for information I may miss. It’s all about the money. Business is Business.
Maybe 48 hrs?
This just don’t make good biz sense to me.
Helluva “tweak” Hahahah!
Have you considered a bare bones subscription? I enjoy your site and I read it daily so it won’t impact me much. However, a 24 hour window is too small for more casual readers. $35/mo for 3-4 articles on week days is a lot when many people don’t need any of your extra business development features. Your subscription price is well above what I pay for WAPO and RTD combined, for example.
I enjoy your website as the news here is much more interesting than the RTD and the comment section is fun. Believe it or not! this is my only social media and often times I regret some of my comments after being posted, but that’s the social media experience, and people here are nice to not ridicule some of what I post. However, I’m retired and it is not something I need.
I do not think this decision will have the impact you think it will.
Richmonders want Bizsense to continue to thrive and grow and hopefully this change works well in that regard. You bring a lot of value to our business community and 24 hours is still better than the Times Dispatch offering. A tiered subscription model might also work well.
This drastic and frankly draconian policy change is patently unfair to those who have no business “need” to have a paid subscription but who do follow RVA business news in RBS regularly. If an important story breaks and is covered in RBS – but the “casual” reader is unable to log in daily to stay abreast of the news – then they are essentially forced to either miss out on the story or to “pay to play”? I realize that business is business – but coupled with the fact that individual monthly subscriptions have more than doubled (from $15/month to… Read more »
I’m kind of agreeing with everyone here. I have a subscription for my job, and read BizSense religiously. Perhaps a better model is to move the paywall to anything bumped off the front page – 7 articles. When I see something that impacts a client, they’re often seeing the article the 2nd or 3rd day.
Oh come on…..ONE DAY? Really? I think you are making a big mistake. I really enjoy your articles, but I wont be paying $125 a year for this. I read RBS almost everyday and one of the best parts is coming back after a few days to read all the comments! You should offer a cheaper alternative to the casual reader!
Bruh…
I’ll echo other’s sentiments here. 24 hours is far too little, and to announce it the day it starts seems either calculated or shortsighted. If you want an engaged community on your pages and in your comments section this is not how you achieve that. This leaves no time to revisit the comment sections. It also will cut down on what I’m willing to share with family and friends, thereby reducing the visits to your page. I’m guessing fewer clicks means less ad revenue. I don’t expect RBS to remain free for a full month, although that was nice, but… Read more »
A great deal of the entertainment value here is the comments section. Many of those comments are made way past the original 24 hours. So going forward I suspect even if you subscribe you will see way less comments resulting in less value for those that are willing to pay. I would think one week or even 72 hours might be the next step to see how it affects traffic. However as all things in business, your site, you get to make the rules and I fully understand trying to monetize your readership however as others have pointed out, I… Read more »