A new Dutch media platform launches on Monday offering individual articles from around 40 Dutch newspapers and magazines for a small fee.

Blendle aims to provide extra revenue for newspapers who are faced with falling circulations as more people turn to reading the news online. Only around 50% of Dutch households still have a daily paper.

The publisher will set the price of each article and get 70%. Blendle will earn 30% of the fee each time an item is read. Most articles are priced at between 10 cents and 25 cents and there is a money-back guarantee if you don’t like what you’ve ordered.

iTunes

So far, 20,000 people have signed up to use the service which was described by the Financial Times as being like the ‘iTunes of journalism’.

The project, the brainchild of former journalists Alexander Klöpping and Marten Blankesteijn, who are both 27, is partly funded by a government initiative to ensure the diversity of the Dutch press.

‘In the same way as we are no longer prepared to buy an entire CD for one number, we no longer want to buy a newspaper for one article,’ Klöpping said, ahead of Monday’s formal launch.

Some 70 cents of every euro spent since the soft launch several months ago came from someone under the age of 40. ‘We’ve had a lot of reaction from young people who have never paid for journalism but have now spent tens of euros on articles,’ Blankesteijn said.

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