26 Mar 2010
News International (NI) has announced that it will charge readers to access its content in a bid to mitigate the effect of ever-declining newspaper sales.
Subscribers to the Times and Sunday Times and those registered with Times Online will be invited to register for a preview of the new scheme this week, the publisher’s chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, said in a memo to staff.
It is speculated that the paywall could start around May Day. Readers will be charged £1 for a day's access or £2 to access to both papers' web sites for a week.
In her message, Brooks said that the publishers are “making a mistake by chasing millions of unique users and giving away content for free”, adding that “an obsession with traffic just doesn't pay”.
Price may be a barrier to take-up, said Brooks, who recognised that the bold move may see unique user numbers decrease dramatically, but added that users who decide to register will be “more committed to and engaged” with NI’s titles.
“This is an exciting development for our company especially as we will be among the first in the world to take this step,” said Brooks.
“There are many who declare we have set ourselves an impossible task. But our company loves nothing more than challenging the status quo,” she said.
Meanwhile, the firm’s rival Guardian News and Media is focusing on enhancing reader engagement on the web and looking to capitalise on its customer base of about 36 million unique users a month by logging their location and analysing their behaviour online.
The decision by News International to charge for access to their web sites is a really interesting move. Meltwater applauds the innovation of new business models for online content. Everybody benefits from a thriving and successful global publishing sector; any move that can mitigate the financial challenges in the media sector is a positive.
Many publications ? such as the Wall Street Journal for example ? have already gone down this route and others are considering the same.
The ongoing challenge for publishers, in the aftermath of installing pay walls, will be to ensure their customers are aware of the valuable and compelling content being created by their journalists. This could very easily be content that readers would be more than happy to pay for, but which they might not even know exists. Getting the balance right between the availability of free content and access to paid-for content will be crucial.
As a truly global media monitoring company, Meltwater believes we can play a valuable role in this regard. We are already creating global awareness of restricted content behind login pages and pay walls for numerous media outlets such as the Financial Times. We promote and market their restricted content to a global audience of potential paying readers and thereby drive traffic and revenue for our partnering publishers.
Jorn Lyseggen, CEO of Meltwater (http://meltwater.com/en/who-we-are)
Posted by: Jorn Lyseggen 28 Mar 2010
As most revenues in the media come from advertisements it is logical to say that restricting access will only hit ads revenue streams. So prepare to have your investors' ads money disappear Murdoch, for who will advertise in a newspaper when it has a very limited audience?
Russian entrepreneurs are moving into UK-based mainstream media, so maybe goodbye Murdoch eventually?
It is noteworthy that since the The Evening Standard was bought by a Russian business man they can now afford to give the paper away FREE in the Streets of London, now a Russian entrepreneurs has bought The Independent.
As I said before ?Cut Your Nose Off to Spite Your Face? please do.
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
http://carl-agpcuk.livejournal.com/
Posted by: Carl Barron 26 Mar 2010
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