Well I can confirm that their decision to erect a paywall directly led to me no longer visiting their site.
It will be interesting to see whether the paywall works for them, but these things were tried and failed in the past so I expect the result to be the same.
My feeling on this is that there are better ways to monetize journalism. One way to do this would be to have a two tier system were readers can read the news as usual, but if you want to get access to the source materials and editorial decisions used to assemble the stories, or to be able to see the journalists at work (for example validating source material), you might pay a subscription. That way people who wanted a deeper understanding could pay to get that.
"if you want to get access to the source materials and editorial decisions used to assemble the stories, or to be able to see the journalists at work (for example validating source material), you might pay a subscription. That way people who wanted a deeper understanding could pay to get that."
That seems like a niche inside a niche inside a miniscule market... surely
Maybe Murdoch will give away access as an extra included service for subscribers of his other media services?
For example - Sky TV subscribers could be given 'free' access, as could Sky broadband customers. By increasing the customer base in this way, he'd gain a larger base of initial users.
He's trying to change the habits and behaviours of a large volume of people. It's probably far easier to do this if the initial wave of people don't have to think about purchasing it in the first place, and in the case of current customers - the costs could be recouped via their standard service's subscription.
Au contraire. This is just with the reg-wall getting in your face on arrival for the first month of transition.
The paywall only went up in the past week or two.
And yes, they're still counting all the referer traffic that arrives, gets dumped into the paywall and then leaves, as "traffic". That won't last long.
Depends - they probably give free online access with paper deliveries. The question is how many unpaid signups converted into paid? If that number is lower than the decrease in advertising revenue due to lower traffic, then it turned out poorly.
Can't read the article without registering but just wanted go say the recent deal between Yahoo! And Guardian/Telegraph/Mail looked like a win for all involved. I bet The Times would have liked in on that.
(Yahoo! UK added tabs for those newspapers' headlines onto their front page alongside their usual Yahoo News/ Reuters coverage. Clicking takes you to the papers own sites)
As a UK resident I think the Times missed a trick in their pricing model. Rampant speculation follows: I expect a decent chunk of their visitors are people who receive links via some other Internet medium (social networks, blogs etc.) and who click through to read it. These people are now instantly turned off. If The Times had a decent micropayments model in place (say £1 for 10 articles) this might be a lot more attractive. Unfortunately I don't think Murdoch cares about casual readers.
I think the sad thing about this story, is the likely deal that Rupert Murdoch will have made with the current UK conservative-led government.
The UK Tories don't like big-government, and they believe that free-enterprise should be encouraged at the expense of public services.
The BBC is, quite rightly, a public service - and is unique in its ability to remain relatively impartial and free from commercial pressures. It's successful and provides news coverage that rivals much of the other paid-for news available in the UK.
Last year, Mr Murdoch was making large noises about how the BBC's success makes it more difficult for him to profit from his UK news and media wings. In the run up to the election, his suite of media publications supported the Conservative campaign strongly. Now we have a conservative win - we have an announcement that the BBC is going to be cut back severely, possibly with a reduction to it's main source of income (the license fee).
Maybe I'm being a bit cynical - but I'm pretty certain this isn't a coincidence. While the BBC is providing a good source of news, and programming - paywall experiments like this are far more likely to fail.
However, if the BBC is crippled (as it potentially will be), I think the option of paying for news will seem more and more attractive.
> The BBC is, quite rightly, a public service - and is unique in its ability to remain relatively impartial and free from commercial pressures.
This is the idea but in practice doesn't pan out. The government has to approve changes in the UK TV license fees so you find the BBC makes attempts to mollify the sitting government to get its funding increased.
> Now we have a conservative win
Not exactly. The Conservatives have a minority in the House of Commons in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. I wouldn't exactly say the Lib Dems are partial to any such leanings you may attribute to the Conservatives regarding the media.
> Maybe I'm being a bit cynical
To be fair, I think you're being both cynical and a little biased. Just look at your language of "at the expense of public services". That's not exactly accurate. The Conservative philosophy is traditionally one of smaller government and lower taxes so many such services are paid for in a more "user pays" kind of system.
> However, if the BBC is crippled (as it potentially will be)
Anything may "potentially" happen. Nothing has happened here other than conservative publications have supported a conservative Prime Minister. Nothing new there.
I would also say that Murdoch's profits in the UK largely come from BSkyB and tabloids such as the Sun rather than the Times.
How ironic is it that an article about the abject failure of a paywall is hidden behind a registrationwall, which has proven to be almost as much of a barrier?
More of a barrier; I'm an FT subscriber, and having tried to click through on the original link am not able to read this story (my "free page count" has been reached - I assume by other HN readers - but as a premium subscriber I should have no such limit). All other pages work fine.
I guess that's a few quid I won't be spending from next month onwards...
> The data include users who may simply arrive on the homepage and then leave without paying, but Mr Goad said average visit time had stayed relatively consistent, suggesting most visitors had paid to view a story.
It might be that the people who are paying to read are people who spend longer reading the site.
One media buyer said The Times had doubled its online advertising rates since the paywall went up
Also remember that subscriptions to the site are virtually pure profit, less hosting costs. Unlike actually selling the physical paper which covered distribution.
Add those two together and suddenly you're looking at them making more money than they did before the paywall.
So the exact opposite of your rule.
Still, jury's still out in my opinion, lets see if they can actually sell those spots and if the uniques stabilize as they still look like they're trending down. We've also got no figures of actual subscribers.
I'm sure if it works Murdoch will gleefully be broadcasting it to the world. For the moment, the experiment hasn't run its course and can't yet be called.
[+] [-] motters|15 years ago|reply
It will be interesting to see whether the paywall works for them, but these things were tried and failed in the past so I expect the result to be the same.
My feeling on this is that there are better ways to monetize journalism. One way to do this would be to have a two tier system were readers can read the news as usual, but if you want to get access to the source materials and editorial decisions used to assemble the stories, or to be able to see the journalists at work (for example validating source material), you might pay a subscription. That way people who wanted a deeper understanding could pay to get that.
[+] [-] axod|15 years ago|reply
That seems like a niche inside a niche inside a miniscule market... surely
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
For example - Sky TV subscribers could be given 'free' access, as could Sky broadband customers. By increasing the customer base in this way, he'd gain a larger base of initial users.
He's trying to change the habits and behaviours of a large volume of people. It's probably far easier to do this if the initial wave of people don't have to think about purchasing it in the first place, and in the case of current customers - the costs could be recouped via their standard service's subscription.
[+] [-] marknutter|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjtgraham|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] handelaar|15 years ago|reply
The paywall only went up in the past week or two.
And yes, they're still counting all the referer traffic that arrives, gets dumped into the paywall and then leaves, as "traffic". That won't last long.
[+] [-] lionhearted|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tycho|15 years ago|reply
(Yahoo! UK added tabs for those newspapers' headlines onto their front page alongside their usual Yahoo News/ Reuters coverage. Clicking takes you to the papers own sites)
[+] [-] sambeau|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ars|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seldo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intranation|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seldo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
The UK Tories don't like big-government, and they believe that free-enterprise should be encouraged at the expense of public services.
The BBC is, quite rightly, a public service - and is unique in its ability to remain relatively impartial and free from commercial pressures. It's successful and provides news coverage that rivals much of the other paid-for news available in the UK.
Last year, Mr Murdoch was making large noises about how the BBC's success makes it more difficult for him to profit from his UK news and media wings. In the run up to the election, his suite of media publications supported the Conservative campaign strongly. Now we have a conservative win - we have an announcement that the BBC is going to be cut back severely, possibly with a reduction to it's main source of income (the license fee).
Maybe I'm being a bit cynical - but I'm pretty certain this isn't a coincidence. While the BBC is providing a good source of news, and programming - paywall experiments like this are far more likely to fail.
However, if the BBC is crippled (as it potentially will be), I think the option of paying for news will seem more and more attractive.
[+] [-] rwmj|15 years ago|reply
Or (sadly) we'll just read less news and more HN.
[+] [-] cletus|15 years ago|reply
This is the idea but in practice doesn't pan out. The government has to approve changes in the UK TV license fees so you find the BBC makes attempts to mollify the sitting government to get its funding increased.
> Now we have a conservative win
Not exactly. The Conservatives have a minority in the House of Commons in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. I wouldn't exactly say the Lib Dems are partial to any such leanings you may attribute to the Conservatives regarding the media.
> Maybe I'm being a bit cynical
To be fair, I think you're being both cynical and a little biased. Just look at your language of "at the expense of public services". That's not exactly accurate. The Conservative philosophy is traditionally one of smaller government and lower taxes so many such services are paid for in a more "user pays" kind of system.
> However, if the BBC is crippled (as it potentially will be)
Anything may "potentially" happen. Nothing has happened here other than conservative publications have supported a conservative Prime Minister. Nothing new there.
I would also say that Murdoch's profits in the UK largely come from BSkyB and tabloids such as the Sun rather than the Times.
[+] [-] cletus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timthorn|15 years ago|reply
I guess that's a few quid I won't be spending from next month onwards...
[+] [-] lwhi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sambeau|15 years ago|reply
Actually, if they are all paying - that's a really good result.
[+] [-] sambeau|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sambeau|15 years ago|reply
Online Times circulation ~1,200,000 per day @ £1/30*
(*although we don't know how many of those actually paid £1 for 30 days viewing)
It would be fascinating to know the actual figures.
[+] [-] mooism2|15 years ago|reply
It might be that the people who are paying to read are people who spend longer reading the site.
[+] [-] fix3r|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shortformblog|15 years ago|reply
(Disclosure: I actually subscribed to Newsday's paywall mode for a little while, basically to make fun of it: http://shortformblog.com/tag/customer-36 )
[+] [-] mattmanser|15 years ago|reply
One media buyer said The Times had doubled its online advertising rates since the paywall went up
Also remember that subscriptions to the site are virtually pure profit, less hosting costs. Unlike actually selling the physical paper which covered distribution.
Add those two together and suddenly you're looking at them making more money than they did before the paywall.
So the exact opposite of your rule.
Still, jury's still out in my opinion, lets see if they can actually sell those spots and if the uniques stabilize as they still look like they're trending down. We've also got no figures of actual subscribers.
I'm sure if it works Murdoch will gleefully be broadcasting it to the world. For the moment, the experiment hasn't run its course and can't yet be called.