Scroll Signs On Publishers for Service That Will Curb Their Ads

Tony Haile, co-founder of Scroll, believes the growing adoption of ad blockers shows that consumers are willing to pay for a better, ad-free news experience.

  A new ad blocking company, Scroll, is launching at the end of this year, and they are attempting to satisfy the wants of the consumers who are fed up with ads blocking their enjoyment of news sites. Scroll is putting a new spin on things, and has concluded that having consumers pay for an ad-free experience is actually more profitable to advertising companies than actually putting the ad on the publishers site. As a consumer (and hater) of news sites that contain these never-ending advertisements, I am happy to see that there may be a possible solution to this problem.

   Scroll is a subscription service that intends to provide ad free experiences for the consumers of the participating news organizations for just $5 a month. This company seems to have started something as networks such as MSNBC, Business Insider, Fusion Media Group, and the Atlantic are among the news organizations that have already signed up to join. Tony Haile, the co-founder of Scroll, based this company's goal off the growing use of ad blockers in 2016 that proved consumers were willing to pay for an ad free experience. The plan for Scroll is that it will share 70% of its subscription revenue with the publishers, and the amount of revenue each publisher gets depends on the amount of revenue that was generated from each of the news organizations.

   Scroll has ultimately determined what some of the wants of their customers. They have analyzed their customers and found that they are annoyed by ads on news sites, but Scroll has found a potential solution for it. A few of the participating news organizations that have already signed up to be a part of Scroll are in the process of experimenting to find out weather its users would be willing to pay for an ad free version of their site. The publishers are working alongside Scroll in order to enhance the overall welfare of each organization, and in hopes that this will increase revenue for both the publishers that are a part of Scroll, advertising companies, and for Scroll themselves. We will see if this will be a success when it launches later this year. 

By: Kelsie Walker

https://www.wsj.com/articles/scroll-signs-on-publishers-for-service-that-will-curb-their-ads-1519315200mod=nwsrl_cmo&cx_refModule=nwsrl#cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=ctrl&cx_artPos=6