An experiment and our Christmas offer to subscribe to The Kākā

It’s that time of the year when we offer 50% off for a year to new subscribers for the next fortnight until December 21, which is ‘Gravy Day’. It’s our version of a Christmas/Black Monday/Cyber Monday/Singles Day/Boxing Day offer. We call it the ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’New subscribers can claim the offer here. That means a full subscription to The Kākā costs $9.50 a month or $95 per year for the first year, and then reverts to the regular price of $19 a month or $190 a year after a year.A reminder that we also have special all-year-round offers for full subscriptions for:* all under-30s at $3 a month or $30 a year forever; and, * those over-65s who rent at $65 a year for life. Also a reminder that we will upgrade anyone on a free subscription to a full paid subscription for free if they’re a student, a teacher, work for a university or polytech, or are on a main benefit. Students and teachers are automatically upgraded for free when they register with their ‘.ac.nz’ or ‘.school.nz’ email addresses. For beneficiaries, just write ‘gravy’ in as your second name when you sign up to the free email and we’ll upgrade you automatically. We also automatically upgrade any free subscribers who work for advocacy groups or political parties or media organisations. We’ll do that automatically by reading your email address relating to your organisation or employer. I’m trying out opening everything up to allTo mark this ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’ event and to give everyone a clear idea of what your subscription supports, I’ll be doing video interviews with newsmakers and experts daily about solutions to Aotearoa’s problems in housing, climate and poverty for the next 14 days and publishing them in full to all via The Kākā on substack and via YouTube. It will mean I’ll be producing fewer and less detailed Dawn Chorus compilations of curated daily news. It’s an experiment and I welcome feedback.As an experiment, I’ll also open up everything for everyone in full for these 14 days to see if it increases readership and revenues. I’ve always been sceptic about having completely free access while also asking for a regular contribution, but others doing public interest journalism have found some success asking for subscriptions with a promise to give it all away to the public, even those who can’t pay.Subscriptions to The Kākā have flattened out and then fallen a little this year for the first time since we turned the paywall on in September 2021. That’s partly due to a couple of publishing hiatuses during the year when I took a mid-winter break and then took some time off when my Mum passed away. It may also be because of cost-of-living pressures, or because I have been opening up more articles lately after getting over 100 likes. I’m not sure. I have a hunch there is support from paying subscribers to open up all articles and podcasts as long as it is in the public interest. We’ll see. A surge in revenues may convince me to go permanently open.The fall in revenues we’ve seen, along with an increase in costs, has forced us to tighten our belts a bit, including stopping our weekly climate wrap. We’re very lucky that Cathrine Dyer is able to volunteer to come onto the Hoon to talk about climate regularly, but we can’t afford the weekly wraps anymore.Wishing you all a safe and happy run-up to Christmas. We appreciate all the support of all subscribers.Ngā mihi nuiBernardThe Kākā by Bernard Hickey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe