By NYU Staff

A Boston Consulting Group survey reported that half of Americans will pay for online content. When asked to state the dollar amount that they would pay, most said about three dollars. The survey compares the U.S results to several other countries, including a few in Western Europe, and reveal that more people in those countries are willing to pay for content—about 60 percent to be exact.

But head of the global media practice group at Boston Consulting John Rose tells the New York Times that the numbers has a lot to do with the availability of content. “Consumer willingness and intent to pay is related to the availability of a rich amount of free content. “There is more, better, richer free in the United States than anywhere else,” he says.

Rose further asserted that while media is dominated by a few parties in Europe, there is stark contrast to the plethora of readily accessible news sources in the United States.

This data obviously reiterates the devastation occurring in the newspaper industry today, with the significant number of organizations that have experienced major shrinkage or have simply disappeared all together at its peak.

But of the 50 percent of Americans who are willing to pay for their news, its seems so far  that they don’t mind giving a few of their dollars to websites like Spot.Us or other recently launched organizations like Voice of San Diego or the Texas Tribune. Combined, these organizations have raised tens of millions of dollars and are poised to raise more if they can keep convincing the public that it’s worth it.

Now, 50 percent is a pretty decent sized number. It’s not quite the majority, but shows that some people won’t mind opening up their wallets for the sake of “good” content.