One more tidbit from last week’s World Association of Newspapers confab in Barcelona: a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers on exactly how much consumers will pay for news online.

The answer: 62 percent of what they pay for news in print. The interviews were done with 5,000 people in seven countries. The research found Americans willing to pay the most (68 percent) and Dutch the least (38 percent), with consumers in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK falling in between.

The categories with the highest potential for charging online: financial (97 percent said they’d pay) and sports news (77 percent).

Surprisingly, mobile ranked low. According to PWC: consumers are currently unwilling to pay for online content on mobile devices. The respondents to our survey indicated that this was mainly due to the difficulty of reading the information on screen. However, additional studies also identify the data transfer charges made by telecom providers as a major factor.

Other findings:

– Since consumers “will choose the cheapest available product with comparable value,” the potential to capture even two-thirds of what’s charged for news in print is severely limited by widespread availability of free news online.

– Although most consumers say they’re most interested in general news, that’s not the news they’re inclined to pay for. Highest potential for paid-for news involves “specialized, targeted and relevant information.”

– Consumers are more inclined to pay for news provided by “high value, topic-specific publications (as opposed to) newspapers providing general news only.”

– Readers of online news “expect to be part of the intellectual debate and to be able to contribute to ‘their’ newspaper, both in terms of commenting on stories and in providing content.”

– Although there is a huge potential for growth online, print remains the largest source of revenue generation for newspaper publishers, and will continue to be so for some time.

– Use of video in online news sites gives the feel of a ‘TV-like’ experience (consumers’ favorite medium for news) giving newspaper brands the opportunity to secure online audiences beyond their print readership and into the television audience more generally.

The full report makes for fascinating reading – highly recommended. You can download it for free here.