The top example: “Le Figaro’s approach, 14 months in the making, keeps the main newspaper content free but offers two other options at $10 and $20 a month. Premium users get access to in-depth information, special offers, twice-daily newsletters, roundtable discussions with journalists, the opportunity to see their own content on the home page of the site and a concierge service that can arrange everything from theater tickets to shirt cleaning.”

Premiums are key, the report says. “In 52 countries around the world, 71 percent told Nielsen that online content would have to be better than what is available free before they would pay for it, and 79 percent would not use a site that charges them if they can find the same information at no cost.”

“Despite determined statements by several publishers earlier this year that they intended to make consumers pay for the valuable content newspapers have given away for more than a decade, the managers of some newspapers have come to realize that they can’t afford to lose the traffic that pay walls almost certainly would turn away,” he writes.

“So, the executives are scrapping plans to charge for most, if any, of their content.”

Update: MediaNews Group plans to put up pay walls at two of its newspapers in early 2010, but with only some content requiring a fee, Editor & Publisher says. The changes will take place at the Enterprise-Record in Chico, Ca., and the York (Pa.) Daily Record, and may occur later at other company sites – such as The Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News.