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
People watch 24 hour news not because they're newsophiles, but because there's some big story breaking, or they want the news now, not at the next regular bulletin. I'd bet money that the number of people who watch 24 hour news, who would pay for the services you suggest, is very small indeed.
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.
Possibly the Times removing itself from view as far as most internet users are concerned might be a good thing for rival sites. It means that there are slightly fewer advertising slots on news sites, which could increase their value. Certainly in my case other news sites are getting higher traffic because of the Times paywall.
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.
Apple and Amazon have gotten closer than anybody else in the mass online market though. Tons of people routinely buy 99 cent items through them. Yes it needs to go farther to say 1 cent transactions or less for it to be true micropayments. I think these 2 players plus Google and PayPal are probably best positioned to eventually deliver a true general-purpose micropayments service.
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.
"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."
I agree that the BBC has tried to ameliorate the current government by changing the visibility of some services in light of the coming changes - but I think that it's understandable, considering the way that commercial entities can (and do) lobby the government to make their will known. It is far easier to strike a deal with a commercial entity, and I think that Conservatives are very aware of this fact. I think it's a case of 'you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours'.
"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."
The Conservatives have the majority stake in the Con-Lib coalition. I think most would agree that the Liberal agenda is not at the forefront of this new government.
"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."
I disagree - I don't think that 'user pays' is the most visible result. Historically, private enterprise puts profit before all other considerations. Some services are essential to the entire population - and access needs to be granted regardless of the wealth of each individual citizen.
The fact we have the BBC is an amazingly good thing - and I think dismantling of the organisation by this government would be unforgivable.
With the sweeping changes across the public sector, the restructuring of the NHS and the latest threat to the future of the BBC, I think the UK is going to end up being irreversibly changed. At the route of all of these changes is a pretty standard Tory philosophy; they're now able to do what they'd like to do, but under the guise of 'austerity'.
I do have have a bias - but, as a UK citizen, I have a right to a point of view.
Anything _may_ potentially happen .. but I'd argue there's a very specific agenda in place. Remember - up until recently, a lot of Murdoch's publications actually supported Labour ... the situation isn't as straightforward as you make out.
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.
Rules of the Web: SEO and eyeballs. Not ad rates. Ad rates have nothing to do with the rules of the Web. If it makes them money, fine, but they're gonna lose influence no matter what way they go about it.
Michael Wolff of Newser had an informant quote an powerful entertainment publicist who said he wouldn't have his clients talk to The Times anymore because nobody was going to see what they said.
"Why would I get any of my clients to talk to the Times or the Sunday Times if they are behind a paywall? Who can see it? I can't even share a link and they aren't on search. It’s as though their writers don't exist anymore."
Doesn't matter how much money Rupert's making if his journalists are getting scooped. It has a much worse long-term effect for him.
The only way this model is going to work is if the holy grail of SEO and the social Web get combined with the paywall model. The New York Times gets this, and they're going to try to mix the two.
As for this, you can't even click on an article without running into that screen. That, to me, is a total failure to understand the "Rules of the Web."
"For me, reading on line is tied to blogging. I'm not going to spend my time reading sites that I can't blog, and I'm not going to blog and link to sites that you can't read without paying...."
I agree .. treating online media in exactly the same way as its traditional counterpart is really short-sighted.
For instance - I buy a newspaper when I need to get from A to B and need something to read. I'll choose one paper over all others, simply because I'm _forced_ to make a choice.
When I'm at a computer, I want to be able to compare coverage between publications .. I won't go to one source and take one reporters account as gospel. I'll consider what the traditional media has to say, and also what bloggers and commenters have to say as well.
I no longer need to invest in one publication only. Everything can - and is - linked. Placing an artificial break in that chain seems ridiculous.
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.