Legal Research

The Times they are a charging

By scott

News Corp announced this week that they had 105,000 online customer sales for The Times and The Sunday Times since the two papers began charging for access to their websites on July.

Immediately the most interesting thing about the figures is what they didn’t say. News Corp chose to provide a lump sum figure rather than an individual breakdown of the various parts of its charging pie, a move that would seem to indicate that the figures are not as wonderful as News Corp would like us to believe. And you better believe that if they could have stuck two fingers up at the naysayers they would have done. That they haven’t tells its own story.
What they did say was about half of the sales were monthly website, iPad or Kindle subscriptions, and that they had another 100,000 people who had taken up the option of online access as part of their print subscription. So a total of around 200,000 online users. Considering their around half a million readers of the Times and a million of the Sunday Times, is that a success?

The Times and News Corp seem happy with the figures, and they say they expect these figures to grow steadily over the next year. I’m not convinced. You may say this is not a surprise as I am on record as thinking the paywall route is the wrong way to go in the current market. But I also think it is common sense.

With The Times giving free peaks to their content ? especially as the paywall has been down a number of times in the past couple of months ? and basic curiosity, of people wanting to have a look at the content I’d have expected these initial numbers to actually be a bit higher. As a result I think a good number of those who have tried the content via monthly website, iPad or Kindle subscriptions may well abandon it within the next 6 months.

Add to this the question of how will they grow numbers when they’ve cut themselves off from the online conversation?, and it is surely here that any growth must come from, as current print subscriber get online access free?

Before the paywall, I would usually see a link to at least one Times article via Twitter or Facebook etc a day that I might click through to. Now, not one, and what is out of sight is truly out of mind. The Times is no longer a consideration for me, I have pretty much forgotten its existence ? and I say this as someone who buys a newspaper every day. Yes, it still has the History, but it risks being consigned to history by its invisibility.

Full post as published by Information Overload on November 04, 2010 (boomark / email).