The Times paywalls go up...
Discussion
Right, let's put some credible figures to the story. Dan Sabbagh, former Media Editor at The Times says that his sources in Wapping have revealed they have a total of 27,500 subscribers - 15,000 on the site and 12,500 on iPads.
http://www.beehivecity.com/newspapers/times-paywal...
Assuming then, that all 27,500 are paying the £2 weekly subscription that's around £2.8m a year. Not being funny, but that's peanuts in the grand scheme of things. How will they drive up registered users? How will they replace people who decide they don't want to pay £2 a week any more?
Here's an interesting analysis of how the financials break down:
http://www.beehivecity.com/newspapers/times-paywal...
http://www.beehivecity.com/newspapers/times-paywal...
Assuming then, that all 27,500 are paying the £2 weekly subscription that's around £2.8m a year. Not being funny, but that's peanuts in the grand scheme of things. How will they drive up registered users? How will they replace people who decide they don't want to pay £2 a week any more?
Here's an interesting analysis of how the financials break down:
http://www.beehivecity.com/newspapers/times-paywal...
Beehive City said:
So, if you take a newspaper and charge for its website, do you get growth or contraction overall? Let’s take The Times and Sunday Times as examples, seeing as we have some figures to play with following our post of this morning, and see what sort of answers you might get. The conclusion is that the print plus digital combination is not pointing the way to much growth yet.
1. Monthly circulation figures.
This is the most positive indicator. Start with the print sales in June. So for The Times, they were 503,642 – down by 11,737. The Sunday Times gave up 32,035 at 1.085 million. Average that out and you get a loss of 14,636 across both titles over the seven days.
Now, compare that to the growth in online sales and iPad sales — 27,500 in total. That looks like victory: overall seven day sales (online gains minus print losses) are up by 12,864. But it does take the charitable view that the online numbers follow a one off high profile launch. It’s unlikely that the 27,500 gain will be repeated in future months.
2. Reversing longer term sales decline?
All ‘broadsheet’ newspapers are in sales decline. The Times sold 503,642 in June — compared to 590,900 in the same month a year ago. But last year’s figure included 51,785 giveaways. So, the real decline is 35,473 or 6.6 per cent.
The Sunday Times sold 1,191,726 in June 2009, with bulk giveaways stripped out. That had dropped to 1,085,724 in June of this year — a fall of 106,002 or 8.9 per cent. That means over seven days (counting The Sunday Times as a seventh of the drop off) circulation fell by 45,448 at both newspapers.
Which means that 27,500 new online paying readers replaced just over a half of last year’s circulation losses. That’s probably a fairer comparison than a single month head to head, if only because the launch of a new service is such a one off event. Or to put it another way, online gains don’t even takes the Times titles back to where they were a year ago.
3. Money.
This is the most important one, and it is the toughest comparison because print readers are so much more valuable than digital ones.
Now, because the audited circulation figures are daily averages, we can fairly assume that every reader counted buys the title every day of the week. So each reader counted is worth £6.50 at the tills for The Times and another £2 at The Sunday Times. That’s £8.50 a week. Strip out the retailer’s take and the distribution fee, and the gross receipt to the publisher would be about £6 – or about £26 in an average month.
Meanwhile, the sensible online reader pays £2 a week (the best deal on offer), or about £8.50 a month. No money is shared with the retailer or distributor, although presumably there are some merchant processing fees, so lets round it down to £8 a month for News Corporation, the publisher. Then factor in that some of the less bargain conscious pay £1 a day several days a month, rather than go for the £2 a week deal, so let’s say the average digital reader is worth £10 a month.
Handily, The Times iPad app costs about £10 a month, although I have no idea how much money goes to Apple/merchants and all that. So, before anybody helps me, I’ll be kind and say News Corp keeps all that tenner. (++ Update: I’m actually told that Apple keeps about 30 per cent; so the true back to publisher number is £7 — which would make a difference to the calculation below ++)
All of which means that the typical print reader (£26) is worth at least two and a half times (£10) the average online reader. And the figure could be more like three times.
So, for those of you still here and having fun, it means that the 27,500 new digital subscribers are equivalent to 10,576 new print readers. Now compare that to the annual sales decline of 45,778 – or even the one month decline of 14,636.
On that measure, at this moment in time, defeat.
1. Monthly circulation figures.
This is the most positive indicator. Start with the print sales in June. So for The Times, they were 503,642 – down by 11,737. The Sunday Times gave up 32,035 at 1.085 million. Average that out and you get a loss of 14,636 across both titles over the seven days.
Now, compare that to the growth in online sales and iPad sales — 27,500 in total. That looks like victory: overall seven day sales (online gains minus print losses) are up by 12,864. But it does take the charitable view that the online numbers follow a one off high profile launch. It’s unlikely that the 27,500 gain will be repeated in future months.
2. Reversing longer term sales decline?
All ‘broadsheet’ newspapers are in sales decline. The Times sold 503,642 in June — compared to 590,900 in the same month a year ago. But last year’s figure included 51,785 giveaways. So, the real decline is 35,473 or 6.6 per cent.
The Sunday Times sold 1,191,726 in June 2009, with bulk giveaways stripped out. That had dropped to 1,085,724 in June of this year — a fall of 106,002 or 8.9 per cent. That means over seven days (counting The Sunday Times as a seventh of the drop off) circulation fell by 45,448 at both newspapers.
Which means that 27,500 new online paying readers replaced just over a half of last year’s circulation losses. That’s probably a fairer comparison than a single month head to head, if only because the launch of a new service is such a one off event. Or to put it another way, online gains don’t even takes the Times titles back to where they were a year ago.
3. Money.
This is the most important one, and it is the toughest comparison because print readers are so much more valuable than digital ones.
Now, because the audited circulation figures are daily averages, we can fairly assume that every reader counted buys the title every day of the week. So each reader counted is worth £6.50 at the tills for The Times and another £2 at The Sunday Times. That’s £8.50 a week. Strip out the retailer’s take and the distribution fee, and the gross receipt to the publisher would be about £6 – or about £26 in an average month.
Meanwhile, the sensible online reader pays £2 a week (the best deal on offer), or about £8.50 a month. No money is shared with the retailer or distributor, although presumably there are some merchant processing fees, so lets round it down to £8 a month for News Corporation, the publisher. Then factor in that some of the less bargain conscious pay £1 a day several days a month, rather than go for the £2 a week deal, so let’s say the average digital reader is worth £10 a month.
Handily, The Times iPad app costs about £10 a month, although I have no idea how much money goes to Apple/merchants and all that. So, before anybody helps me, I’ll be kind and say News Corp keeps all that tenner. (++ Update: I’m actually told that Apple keeps about 30 per cent; so the true back to publisher number is £7 — which would make a difference to the calculation below ++)
All of which means that the typical print reader (£26) is worth at least two and a half times (£10) the average online reader. And the figure could be more like three times.
So, for those of you still here and having fun, it means that the 27,500 new digital subscribers are equivalent to 10,576 new print readers. Now compare that to the annual sales decline of 45,778 – or even the one month decline of 14,636.
On that measure, at this moment in time, defeat.
Edited by Funk on Monday 19th July 22:25
10JH said:
New reports saying that the Time Online have lost 90% of their readership.
150,000 registered for the free trial. Only 15,000 prepared to pay money.
^ All stats from IAB
http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/thetimesloses90ofonlinet...
That tallies with the figures I posted the other day, but excludes the iPad users..?150,000 registered for the free trial. Only 15,000 prepared to pay money.
^ All stats from IAB
http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/thetimesloses90ofonlinet...
This was a point well-made:
"However, the Guardian argued that the real figure could have been as high as 90 per cent because Hitwise's figures didn't take into account people who visited the site only to leave immediately after being asked to pay for access beyond the homepage."
Easy to say you've had 'x' million hits, but how many of those actually coughed up? And yes, I think those who buy the paper get access to the online version too.
"However, the Guardian argued that the real figure could have been as high as 90 per cent because Hitwise's figures didn't take into account people who visited the site only to leave immediately after being asked to pay for access beyond the homepage."
Easy to say you've had 'x' million hits, but how many of those actually coughed up? And yes, I think those who buy the paper get access to the online version too.
Just to re-visit an earlier comment on the very first page of the thread:
Funk said:
zac510 said:
Funk said:
advertisers won't be willing to pay massive sums to advertise to 10% of the users they were reaching before.
The advertisers will have access to a much more direct and relevant set of readers rather than a bunch of randoms linked in from blogs or twitter that they're paying to give impressions to (as you know this in turn means low click through rate).As all readers of The Times website will be registered there will be information there for demographic/behavioural marketing too, inceasing the chance of the ad actually being relevant to the reader.
So ad revenue WILL decline; and by significant margins.
Article said:
So far, The Times and The Sunday Times have seen readers leave to access free news elsewhere, with advertisers following suit. “I can go to the Guardian or CNN and get an audience,” said Chris Bailes, digital trading manager at Starcom MediaVest Group, a media buyer owned by Publicis Groupe SA. “No one is indispensable.”
Starcom MediaVest, which has placed ads for the Emirates airline and Continental Airlines Inc., has cut its advertising on the Times and Sunday Times by more than 50 percent, Bailes said. News Corp.’s international unit hasn’t communicated with media buyers about its online figures, he said.
“We wouldn’t put our money where we don’t know the numbers, just as you wouldn’t invest in a stock,” Bailes said.
The fact that News Corp aren't crowing about the figures tells us what we need to know. If it were successful, they'd be making a song and dance about it. The silence is deafening as the tumbleweeds roll through the ghost town that was once The Times..Starcom MediaVest, which has placed ads for the Emirates airline and Continental Airlines Inc., has cut its advertising on the Times and Sunday Times by more than 50 percent, Bailes said. News Corp.’s international unit hasn’t communicated with media buyers about its online figures, he said.
“We wouldn’t put our money where we don’t know the numbers, just as you wouldn’t invest in a stock,” Bailes said.
Alfa numeric said:
Funk said:
The fact that News Corp aren't crowing about the figures tells us what we need to know. If it were successful, they'd be making a song and dance about it. The silence is deafening as the tumbleweeds roll through the ghost town that was once The Times..
Just out of interest, what adverts do you see on the Times website now? Are there a disproportionate amount of Murdoch owned companies?ETA: Why on earth does the Sun and the NOTW have separate websites? Isn't it essentially just the Sunday Sun?
Edited by Alfa numeric on Friday 17th September 11:00
As has been mentioned earlier, I would be pissed to be seeing ads at all having paid for it. It's either user-paid with no ads or user-free with ads as far as I'm concerned. Can't have your cake and eat it.
Pommygranite said:
Given that it will be released as an Iphone/Ipad app and charged weekly, i'm pretty sure there will be people who download the app who are too dumb to realise they'll get charged weekly via itunes.
Are NotW readers able to cope with technology more complicated than an Etch-a-Sketch?Twincam16 said:
Tuna said:
I'm amazed people really think that the 'free interwebz' are really going to cause the entire news and media industry to just roll over and give in. Or that anyone really thinks that the various news agencies are going to employ thousands of staff to just give away their work for next to nothing. Or for that matter anyone thinks that a bunch of geeks can produce at no cost news and entertainment that can match the paid for stuff for quality and editorial consistency.
This is the start of the fight back, with Apple proving that if you make it easy enough people will pay hand over fist for content that they could get for free.
The bottom line is that these guys have vast resources to ensure that if you go searching for content it will be their titles you get to first. Sure, if you can be bothered you can pick a couple of dozen sites that can rival their output when you take the time to knit them all together. But most consumers won't be bothered and most will move to subscribing electronically where they previously paid their account at the newsagent. The Times might not be awash with subscribers now, but they made the move first and over the next couple of years you'll see a lot more of the same.
Will it be the end of the old media incumbents - I doubt it. Will this be the new business model to replace all others - I doubt that too. But get used to paying for online content, because it's not going away.
The truth is this: The internet is a great big spanner in the works of capitalism, but ironically, because it's all technology-driven, it's capitalists who are driving it.This is the start of the fight back, with Apple proving that if you make it easy enough people will pay hand over fist for content that they could get for free.
The bottom line is that these guys have vast resources to ensure that if you go searching for content it will be their titles you get to first. Sure, if you can be bothered you can pick a couple of dozen sites that can rival their output when you take the time to knit them all together. But most consumers won't be bothered and most will move to subscribing electronically where they previously paid their account at the newsagent. The Times might not be awash with subscribers now, but they made the move first and over the next couple of years you'll see a lot more of the same.
Will it be the end of the old media incumbents - I doubt it. Will this be the new business model to replace all others - I doubt that too. But get used to paying for online content, because it's not going away.
The very basis of capitalism is the notion of payment for goods or services. Investigating news stories, interviewing difficult-to-reach people, bypassing meddlesome PRs, balancing one view against another and making complex political and economic information available to the layman without partisan spin takes the time and skill of journalists in the same way that music takes the time and skill of musicians and films take the time and skill of directors and actors.
These are services, and if you want them, you'll have to pay for them, simple as that. Murdoch's been very bold with his paywall, and some might poke around at the microeconomics of his decision, but the truth is that there are two ways of paying for televised (which is effectively what the internet is, no different to the TV in terms of the fact that it gets beamed into your house and you watch it on a screen) media - subscriptions, or advertising.
In short, internet media will end up like the BBC or ITV. Most newspapers go down the ITV route with advertising space, which people have pointed out as being irritating. The BBC News website, which is as widely-read as any given newspaper, is to the high quality it is because it's paid for through the licence fee. It isn't 'free'.
Sooner or later, if you want the news on the internet, it'll either be covered in adverts (and quite possibly heavily influenced by product placement), or it'll be via subscription app, or it'll come out of a licence fee via your mobile operator, like the BBC.
People bang on about how everything on the internet should be free but they don't have to work in the sector. I could decide that oil should be free, or clothes, or food, but I wouldn't get very far without paying for them. just because something isn't physically tangible didn't mean it took time, effort and skill to make.
Personally, I feel sorry for the bands out there trying to get noticed. People used to say communications technology made the world smaller, but it hasn't. It's made it infinitely bigger. If you managed to get your face in the NME or Sounds, you'd stand out as one in a hundred bands. Nowadays, no-one will notice you at all.
It's all well and good saying that 'things must be paid for', but in order for things to be paid for, they have to be worth something. I've never purchased a newspaper, in fact I find it slightly odd that anyone wants to read 'yesterday's news'. By the time the paper is out, I've already seen that news on several different platforms (internet, radio, TV) so have no real interest in it - I'm already on today's news.
I don't want opinion or personal perspective in my news, I just want the facts of what's going on.
jsc15 said:
I've subscribed as of yesterday (£1 for first month then £2 a week after that). All's well so far. Some pages a bit slow to load but I seem to have that issue with the Daily Mail site too. Still to explore a bit more (i.e Sunday Times). The number of comments articles get is higher than anticipated, not that this proves much.
Is there much by way of advertising on there? Do you feel it's worth paying for over and above a free site such as the Telegraph?CoopR said:
It doesn't seem that bad for them as I initially would have thought. A quick napkin calculation seems to be a little under £500k/month from fees. Of course that's probably a little high since the figures in the NYP article are a little fluffy.
I wouldn't expect them to have lost more than £500k in advertising so it probably works out for them. Hardly a massive success.
The big question which is still unanswered is longer term success. It's fine keeping some customers for 3-6 maybe even 12 months after going paywall but how do you attract new people?
And new journalists..I wouldn't expect them to have lost more than £500k in advertising so it probably works out for them. Hardly a massive success.
The big question which is still unanswered is longer term success. It's fine keeping some customers for 3-6 maybe even 12 months after going paywall but how do you attract new people?
zac510 said:
FT reporting that Tele will start charging for online news in 2nd half of 2011, but charging more like FT.com rather than black and white of thetimes.co.uk
For those with a subscription
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1b70b9e-fc8b-11df-a9c5-...
At which point I'll just not read the Telegraph either. Not reading the Times has had no impact on me whatsoever since they went paywalled.For those with a subscription
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1b70b9e-fc8b-11df-a9c5-...
Edited by Funk on Tuesday 30th November 23:00
RYH64E said:
Funk said:
zac510 said:
FT reporting that Tele will start charging for online news in 2nd half of 2011, but charging more like FT.com rather than black and white of thetimes.co.uk
For those with a subscription
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1b70b9e-fc8b-11df-a9c5-...
At which point I'll just not read the Telegraph either. Not reading the Times has had no impact on me whatsoever since they went paywalled.For those with a subscription
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1b70b9e-fc8b-11df-a9c5-...
Edited by Funk on Tuesday 30th November 23:00
I've noticed the standards of journalism have been slipping on the Telegraph of late; grammar and spelling seem to be optional in many articles.
zac510 said:
I guess one doesn't need others' opinions and columns when they're so far enamoured with their own.
To a large extent people like Funk who are happy to just read the generic PA news feed (or pick it up in paper version on the train in the morning) are not the ones that newspapers are interested in giving news for free to anyway.
It's not a case of being 'enamoured with my own opinion'. I like to be given the facts about things and left to form my own judgements. If opinion is offered, I'd like it to be balanced, presenting both sides of a case or viewpoint. News should just be news; it seems that all-too-often the news is wrapped up and presented in a left or right-leaning manner, designed to create outrage or support the stance the paper has chosen.To a large extent people like Funk who are happy to just read the generic PA news feed (or pick it up in paper version on the train in the morning) are not the ones that newspapers are interested in giving news for free to anyway.
Take The Sun. Having previously been Labour-supporting, it suddenly switched allegiance to the Tories. Why is it 'backing' one party or another in the first place? Am I mad to think that a paper should simply present the facts and the news without putting a slant on it that's designed to influence readers into thinking a particular way? Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that The Sun is a credible source of news or opinion, it's clearly not. I also can't stand the red-top style of writing which feels the need to use short paragraphs and RANDOM HIGHLIGHTS for the slow-of-thinking. Very irritating.
The Guardian and the BBC obviously have a massive 'green' slant on their news and support the left. The Telegraph is more right-leaning (the nickname of 'The Torygraph' is somewhat apt). I used to read The Times before it was paywalled, but as I say, I've not missed it these last few months.
Bumpitty-bump..
Looks like there will be a few changes coming to The Times' paywall following the low readership levels (around 79,000 subscribers).
Estimates show that The Times and Sunday Times have lost a blended average of around 60,000 print readers, worth around £1.5m a month (£18m/yr give or take). The digital subscriptions aren't offsetting that loss (79k subscribers at around £9/month = £711,000 revenue or £8.53m/yr).
There's also continued dejection amongst Times columnists who're locked away in a digital fortress where their reader base is tiny. It seems to be on the cards that a certain number of articles will be made available to non-subscribers for free before they're asked to cough up. I guess Murdoch is hoping that this will stimulate numbers..
http://blogs.ft.com/fttechhub/2011/03/times-paywal...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2011/...
I'm sure this will be an interesting development as figures released yesterday show that the Daily Mail Online is now the world's 2nd most popular online 'paper', ahead of the Huffington Post but still behind the New York Times.
http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/04/19/the-daily-m...
Interestingly Mail and Guardian user figures continue to climb at a fast rate; still wondering whether erecting barricades around your online content is the right thing to do..?
Looks like there will be a few changes coming to The Times' paywall following the low readership levels (around 79,000 subscribers).
Estimates show that The Times and Sunday Times have lost a blended average of around 60,000 print readers, worth around £1.5m a month (£18m/yr give or take). The digital subscriptions aren't offsetting that loss (79k subscribers at around £9/month = £711,000 revenue or £8.53m/yr).
There's also continued dejection amongst Times columnists who're locked away in a digital fortress where their reader base is tiny. It seems to be on the cards that a certain number of articles will be made available to non-subscribers for free before they're asked to cough up. I guess Murdoch is hoping that this will stimulate numbers..
http://blogs.ft.com/fttechhub/2011/03/times-paywal...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2011/...
I'm sure this will be an interesting development as figures released yesterday show that the Daily Mail Online is now the world's 2nd most popular online 'paper', ahead of the Huffington Post but still behind the New York Times.
http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/04/19/the-daily-m...
Interestingly Mail and Guardian user figures continue to climb at a fast rate; still wondering whether erecting barricades around your online content is the right thing to do..?
Andy Zarse said:
Murdoch was pissing in the wind with this business model from day one. Slightly surprised that such a media mogul failed to understand the way modern media works.
I'd like a proper explanation as to how it's caused the paper sales to fall off so badly though. Anyone?
Print media in general is experiencing massive decline, hence the attempt by Murdoch to shore up flagging revenues with an online pay model.I'd like a proper explanation as to how it's caused the paper sales to fall off so badly though. Anyone?
Here are the March 2011 figures showing year-on-year:
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncod...
Not a single one is in growth compared with this time last year.
Edited by Funk on Thursday 21st April 10:52
Tuna said:
Without numbers, that means absolutely nothing. Web advertising revenue 'per visitor' is a fraction of print advertising revenue. Yes, more numbers mean more money, but the question being asked here is: Can subscription revenues (a) pay for your costs and (b) match ad revenues online?
The web encourages this dumb belief that just because you get a squillion hits, you're 'more successful' than a site that has fewer visitors. That's not how you make profit or lead opinions. If it were, the dancing hamster would be more influential than Bill Gates or Barack Obama.
The problem is that Murdoch is showing that The Times' pay model doesn't work. Yes, they're making some money from it, but it's not enough to offset the decline in print revenue.The web encourages this dumb belief that just because you get a squillion hits, you're 'more successful' than a site that has fewer visitors. That's not how you make profit or lead opinions. If it were, the dancing hamster would be more influential than Bill Gates or Barack Obama.
What we really need to know is how much revenue was being generated by advertising pre-paywall, post-paywall and solid user subs revenue. The very fact they're being cagey with this information suggests that it clearly isn't working - especially when combined with the rumours of a move to a partial paywall. Murdoch has a big enough ego that if it were highly successful, he'd be crowing it from the rooftops.
Bear in mind we've been generous with the revenue from subscribers as well; many of those will be paying far less than £10 a month (iPad subs immediately give 30% to Apple for example, and many will buy monthly at £2 a week).
Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff