Six days after the Aug. 10 primary election, Politics in Minnesota will put much of its web content behind a $149-a-year pay wall. In a world where the Star Tribune tip-toes toward such a thing, PIM is going nearly all-in online.

According to Dolan Media vice president and PIM publisher Steve Jahn, "the majority" of PIM's Capitol Report will be viewable only to subscribers. "They'll be a top story in front of the pay wall, information about how to contact us, and how to subscribe," he says.

Some of PIM's blogs will also likely remain free. There's no word on introductory pricing; none is listed on the subscription page.

Politics may be the most competitive local-news niche, and PIM's hopes rely on providing deeper content for the industry that has grown up around government. Normal people may blanch at paying two-thirds the price of a Strib subscription for a niche site that employs a half-dozen reporters, but PIM hopes that content will be deep enough that a couple thousand insiders will fork over.

Asked how many online payers are needed to make the rather forceful experiment a success, Jahn says, "There really isn't a target number that we have in mind. The bottom line for it to work goes back to content. If we can develop something at $50 a month, with 2,000 folks subscribing, it doesn't take long to build a business model."

That day may be far off, but Jahn says the Capitol Report is improving content now. There are new features he wouldn't divulge, but PIM has been staffing up. The title recently added ex-AP reporter Briana Bierschbach, who brings the reporting staff to six, not counting managing editor Steve Perry. A seventh reporter may be added soon, and Perry has a freelance budget.

While PIM's coverage is solid and improving, I can't say what's online now is distinctive enough yet to pay for. Stories rarely drive political-junkie discussions on Twitter, for example — and that's with content still free. Right now, PIM's web traffic appears to be a sliver of even a niche site such as MinnPost.

The paid Capitol Report product will include more than stories: a morning email of links, in addition to Dolan's public-notice and legal databases, and PDFs of the print PIM. There's always a learning curve, and the product that emerges Aug. 16 likely won't stay static for long.

The bottom line, though, is it's a gigantic challenge to get folks to pay for content when so much good political coverage remains free. In addition to traditional media, online-only sites hit the politics beat hard. There are also plenty of partisan blogs that include informational nuggets amid the ideological gravel.

On top of that, the state of Minnesota is better than many at providing free public data online. There's less opportunity to create proprietary databases to lure paying professionals.

Still, Dolan and PIM have figured out a way to make money off this stuff before. Locally, two Dolan pubs, Finance and Commerce and the St. Paul Legal Ledger (rebranded Capitol Report), are built on government-mandated public notices, which the company turns into highly profitable databases.

Politics in Minnesota's Directory — which supplanted an inferior state-published version — has long been a revenue stream; Jahn notes it will be available online for the first time ... at $600 a year. He adds that Dolan's Minnesota Lawyer has long been pay walled, except for blogs.

When I looked into Dolan's local empire two years ago, The Legal Ledger was still behind a pay wall. Print subscriber numbers were puny: 364 for the Legal Ledger; 750 for Finance & Commerce; 1,933 for Minnesota Lawyer. About 700 print copies of Capitol Report are distributed currently to legislators and requestors, excluding paid subscribers, Jahn says.

He insists a "surprising number" of readers have indicated they would pay for an online product, and in any event, each Dolan title must become self-sufficient beyond legal-notice revenue, whose future (especially the print mandate) is unpromised.

The pay wall "can be perceived as another revenue stream," he says. "We've tried it before, but with a significantly different platform in terms of offerings and quality."