Is Murdoch about to cut the cover price of the dumbed-down Times?

To read the mind of Rupert Murdoch is difficult and not necessarily pleasant — difficult because he is cleverer than almost any other publisher who has ever lived, and not necessarily pleasant because he is nearly always planning to do someone down. But students of the man generally agree that the only thing that drives him is circulation. It is all that matters. There is no point in having a low-circulation quality newspaper if it can be turned into a higher-circulation title of less quality. That is why he slashed the cover price of the Times in 1993, which more than doubled the sales of the paper and accelerated its dumbing-down. And it is why the Times adopted the tabloid format more than a year ago, a change which has also increased circulation, if much less spectacularly. In both cases he upset received wisdom, which held that buyers of quality newspapers did not care overmuch about price, and that established Times readers would desert the paper in droves if it went tabloid.

One other point about Mr Murdoch on which most students also agree is that he does not stand still for very long. He will be pleased that the tabloid Times has increased sales by 5 or 6 per cent. The objections of old Times readers about the new format, and their cries of outrage at the further dumbing-down, will not worry him a bit. But he may be disappointed that the tabloid Times has not done rather better than it has, and he will be looking around for new ideas to boost its circulation. There is really only one thing he could do. Start another cover-price war.