Of the possible pay-wall plans publishers could put in place, Continental Research found that micropayments rather than subscriptions would be the most favoured payment option for consumers.
By a margin of more than four to one, 21% of consumers said they would rather pay a small sum, in the range of 2p to 20p for content, as opposed to 5% who said they would pay a larger monthly or annual subscription.
This could have implications for publishers such as Emap, which recently announced it would introduce subscriptions beginning with a
Overall, a large majority, 63%, said they would not pay to read articles online.
Of those who said they were willing to pay 35% said they would be likely to pay 2p per article. This figure falls away quickly the higher the micropayment is. As many as 22% said they would pay 5p with 13% and 7% respectively prepared to pay 10p and 20p.
James Myring, head of media at continental research, said: "The amounts may sound small, but it is better to get a lot of people making small one off payments, than virtually no-one paying a higher subscription. For a comparison, think of the mobile industry, profiting from lots of small payments for text messages."
If micropayments do take off publishers that win out could be those with the content that readers most prize. In Continental's research Jeremy Clarkson, who writes for The Times, tops that list with The Guardian's Charlie Brooker and The Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn also featuring.
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