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Monday 21 May 2012

The Times Goes for Broke

Tuesday, 25th May 2010

Rupert Murdoch is scarcely infallible and there's a sense abroad that he doesn't really understand the internet. But even if that's true it doesn't mean that his decision to take the Times behind a paywall is necessarily a mistake even if, naturally, it's inconvenient for bloggers and other news-grazers.

So journalist me sort of hopes that Murdoch's gamble, beginning today with the launch of a new and sleeker Times website, works; blogger and consumer me is less optimistic and not just because the Times paywall is an upfront charge, not the metered system favoured by the Financial Times and, soon, the New York Times.

In one sense £2 a week is not a great sum to pay. If the Times were the only paper with an online edition one might even think it a bargain. But it isn't and so that £2 a week starts to look like a heftier sum. I like Danny Finkelstein, Matthew Parris, Rachel Sylvester and Mike Atherton a lot but do I want to pay £104 a year to read them? Perhaps I do, but how many others will think there's a big enough difference between their product and the stuff you can get for free?

But even here there's a cultural problem: how many readers who've grown-up with "free" newspapers will sign-up? True, newspapers often spend far too much time and effort and mony chasing the "youth" market and alienating their existing base as they hop abaord the latest faddish bandwagon but in this instance forgetting about the kids adds risk to an enterprise already loaded with hazard.

The Wapping Paywall makes a certain amount of sense; it would make even more if other papers - that is, all of them - also joined* in. Perhaps more will in the future. If that happens then the 1997-2010 era will be recalled both as a crippling age for newspaper-producing but a golden one for newspaper-reading. If Rupert is right then those happy times are coming to an end.

*But if everyone joined in then you'd also create an incentive for someone to break away and offer a free-site. There may be advantages in being first into the paywall pool since, apart from anything else, if this really is a growing trend one has to wonder how many people would be prepared to purchase more than one onlline newspaper subscription.

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Rhoda Klapp

May 25th, 2010 9:42am Report this comment

Pay to read a suicide note? No thanks! Anyhow, whenever Finkelstein writes another daft thing, some damn fool on the coffee house blogs it. It will be inconvenient that you will not be able to link so freely to other publications' correspondent's content, but that's always a cheap way of blogging, I find.

Ben G

May 25th, 2010 10:36am Report this comment

Poor old Rupert, he's losing this touch.

How can the man who built his UK press empire by ruthlessly undercutting the competition in the 90s (remember The Times for 10p?) think he can save it by creating a paywall?

Christopher Snowdon

May 25th, 2010 12:35pm Report this comment

The price is too high but if he halves it to £1 a day, Murdoch has a good chance of making it work. Like all internet users, I would prefer it if he kept it free but newspapers have to do something to make money, so you can't blame him for trying.

Giving away your content for nothing and scratching around for online revenue is not a viable business model. The Times' online audience will fall drastically but newspaper sales will increase. If you're going to buy a paper, it might as well be the one you can't for free online.

dearieme

May 25th, 2010 3:54pm Report this comment

Many people might well feel that they'll read Matt Paris at the public library before they pay a penny piece to The Dirty Digger. Personally, I'll miss the humorous pieces by Arrogant Kaletski.

Snowman

May 25th, 2010 4:09pm Report this comment

There ain’t sufficient value added in the Times for the £2 quid a week to what one gets free elsewhere. The only way a pay system might work would be for all the papers forming an on-line fee association, charging on behalf of all, the fee split amongst them per number of hits.

Another idea: if the Times were to hire Mark Steyn, I’ll pay the fee.

ndm

May 25th, 2010 8:30pm Report this comment

I currently pay for a paper and online subscription to the Wall Street Journal - another Murdoch property. However, the decline in quality of the paper since Murdoch bought it is so noticeable that I am more inclined to bin both subscriptions rather than just move online only which would be the obvious "I'm with the future" move. Perhaps it is back to the FuTure.

My local newspaper is free online but charges for a paper subscription. I don't see any need to cut down an Amazonian rainforest to buy an ad for Macy's so there is little point in a paper subscription. Given how little serious news content there is in the paper the online version can be read in about two minutes.

ndm

May 25th, 2010 8:33pm Report this comment

Snowman writes:

-- Another idea: if the Times were to hire Mark Steyn, I’ll pay the fee.

Given how freely available commentary is there is essentially no point in paying for it. There is less than zero point in paying for Mark Steyn.

Snowman

May 25th, 2010 10:18pm Report this comment

ndm @ 8.33:

you likes WSJ, me likes Mark Steyn; seems we’re different, anything wrong here?

Funny you should say ‘given how freely available commentary is…’ and pay for WSJ.

PS: do little search on the Net if you have a minute. The Greeks, in some shite, were advised by some clever consultancy to switch from publicly funded to privately run delivery of healthcare. Apparently, the standard will stay, the cost will be lower. Tells you anything?

ndm

May 26th, 2010 8:56pm Report this comment

Snowman writes:

-- Funny you should say ‘given how freely available commentary is…’ and pay for WSJ.

Somewhat famously the WSJ put a pay wall in front of its journalism even as it offered its commentary for free. The theory and practice being that people would pay for valuable information from good journalists but would not pay for worthless commentary from bad editorialists.

robert hendry

June 19th, 2010 2:03am Report this comment

Well heres the truth and reality. I buy a newspaper once every two weeks now (if that) because like many others I do my reading on line. However, I do an awful lot of reading on line now so maybe its a good thing im blocked from the Times. If other newspapers follow suit, and I cant see how they wont then I will do even less reading on line and perhaps spend less time worrying about our impending doom and living my life. But I do understand that newspapers are going to have to do something.

As someone who works in the music industry I watched in horror as the executives basically gave music away for free jumping on board sites such as spotify. I now know people who haven't purchased a record in years and totally expect all music free now (its become the norm). Hollywood and the news media have watched the disastrous consequences of the music industries actions and would do well to learn from their mistakes.

In saying all that Im already thinking up a way to provide an excellent news site free for the masses which will rely on advertising income. So go ahead newspapers, the underground free enterprise lads and lassies will step in. Information in the future will become valuable and expensive, especially if governments get control of the web such as Obama is trying to do right now. Of course they dont want an educated mass...

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