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Newspapers Unveil Their Pay Per Read Websites


osbaldwick

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HOLA441

The Times and Sunday Times newspapers have unveiled their new-look websites as they prepare to become the first in the UK to charge online readers for content.

Readers who register will be able to access the websites for free until late June, after which they must pay £1 (€1.20) for the daily Times, and £2 for a week's subscription.

The new websites replace the single timesonline.co.uk site for the two papers, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

'We're taking a big step.... In recent years information and news has been free on the Internet,' said Times Editor James Harding.

'Our feeling is that it is time to stop giving away our journalism, and that's because we feel that we are undermining the value of our journalism,' he told BBC radio.

With newspaper sales in decline and advertising increasingly moving online, owners have been searching for a business model that will make profits from their websites.

Mr Murdoch announced last August plans to charge for online content from all his newspapers.

The Times and Sunday Times move makes them the first British titles with a paywall for all their content rather than for selected articles.

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HOLA442

The Times and Sunday Times newspapers have unveiled their new-look websites as they prepare to become the first in the UK to charge online readers for content.

Readers who register will be able to access the websites for free until late June, after which they must pay £1 (€1.20) for the daily Times, and £2 for a week's subscription.

The new websites replace the single timesonline.co.uk site for the two papers, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

'We're taking a big step.... In recent years information and news has been free on the Internet,' said Times Editor James Harding.

'Our feeling is that it is time to stop giving away our journalism, and that's because we feel that we are undermining the value of our journalism,' he told BBC radio.

With newspaper sales in decline and advertising increasingly moving online, owners have been searching for a business model that will make profits from their websites.

Mr Murdoch announced last August plans to charge for online content from all his newspapers.

The Times and Sunday Times move makes them the first British titles with a paywall for all their content rather than for selected articles.

What's the point, loads of others will still be free and you get better news/comment from forums and blog sites.

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HOLA443

I think that Mr Harding will find that the general level of reporting standards covers the 'value of our journalism' part. People have been getting it for free because that's just about what the reporting is worth.

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HOLA448

£1 to read 80% AP/Reuters/press release junk that a Times journalist didn't write, 18% sport/weather/letters, 1.9% idiotic opinions from idiotic commentators like Anatole Kaletsky, 0.1% actual journalism where somebody who works for the Times does some digging and finds out something nobody in the wider world knew before.

No thanks.

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HOLA4410

Currently, most websites are monetized by placing ads, and this is usually measured in terms of CPM (cost per mille; how much ad revenue you get for 1000 displays of a webpage). *

How much money you can make from ads on a website is an annoyingly murky and vague subject - but I won't go far wrong if I say that £1 CPM is within the right order of magnitude.

So, the typical reader of The Times is going to read - let's argue - 100 pages a week. With a subscription of £1/week, this will translate to a CPM of £10.

Methinks that either 1. My estimates of CPM are way out and The Times website has been making a very tidy profit from its ads 2. They're being a tiny bit greedy with their subscriptions.

* I know that this is Captain Obvious to the geeks here, but I'm writing for the other 90% ;)

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HOLA4411

Currently, most websites are monetized by placing ads, and this is usually measured in terms of CPM (cost per mille; how much ad revenue you get for 1000 displays of a webpage). *

How much money you can make from ads on a website is an annoyingly murky and vague subject - but I won't go far wrong if I say that £1 CPM is within the right order of magnitude.

So, the typical reader of The Times is going to read - let's argue - 100 pages a week. This will translate to a CPM of £10.

Methinks that either 1. My estimates of CPM are way out and The Times website has been making a very tidy profit from its ads 2. They're being a tiny bit greedy with their subscriptions.

* I know that this is Captain Obvious to the geeks here, but I'm writing for the other 90% wink.gif

Surely your maths would make that 10p?

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Currently, most websites are monetized by placing ads, and this is usually measured in terms of CPM (cost per mille; how much ad revenue you get for 1000 displays of a webpage). *

How much money you can make from ads on a website is an annoyingly murky and vague subject - but I won't go far wrong if I say that £1 CPM is within the right order of magnitude.

So, the typical reader of The Times is going to read - let's argue - 100 pages a week. This will translate to a CPM of £10.

Methinks that either 1. My estimates of CPM are way out and The Times website has been making a very tidy profit from its ads 2. They're being a tiny bit greedy with their subscriptions.

* I know that this is Captain Obvious to the geeks here, but I'm writing for the other 90% ;)

IMO are been very greedy with the online subs, but the somehow WSJ is charging $18/month for their ipad app; more expensive than their print & combined online subs package at $12/month

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HOLA4414

Not sure how this will work out for them.Been playing around with Ubuntu/Chrome on my Netbook. Chrome has some handy plugins that will download RSS feeds from the Telegraph, NYT, The Indie and so on... Currently these are free feeds. So best of luck to them. It makes some of the human news feeds on here redundant! :lol: If you got a subscription that gave you online access to a range of titles/magazines then it would be worth considering. But a single title, just wouldn't be attractive.

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'Our feeling is that it is time to stop giving away our journalism, and that's because we feel that we are undermining the value of our journalism,' he told BBC radio.

For me, their "journalism" is not worth paying for. They are about to find out how many people are willing to pay to be told what Murdoch wants them to hear.

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HOLA4419

Thanks for the question - I clarified my original post to make my thinking (hopefully) a bit clearer.

Sorry, I think I missread your post.

What you are saying is that:

1. Assume the average punter hits 100 pages a week.

2. Advertising pays £1 per 1000 page views.

3. Therefore it takes 10 punters to earn the website £1/week.

Alternative model:

1. Assume a subscription model of £1/Week/Punter.

2. Therefore the same 10 punters earn the website £10/week.

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HOLA4420

Sorry, I think I missread your post.

What you are saying is that:

1. Assume the average punter hits 100 pages a week.

2. Advertising pays £1 per 1000 page views.

3. Therefore it takes 10 punters to earn the website £1/week.

Alternative model:

1. Assume a subscription model of £1/Week/Punter.

2. Therefore the same 10 punters earn the website £10/week.

Except, none of the 10 punters subscribed. They just started reading The Telegraph or The Independent instead.

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HOLA4421

Sorry, I think I missread your post.

What you are saying is that:

1. Assume the average punter hits 100 pages a week.

2. Advertising pays £1 per 1000 page views.

3. Therefore it takes 10 punters to earn the website £1/week.

Alternative model:

1. Assume a subscription model of £1/Week/Punter.

2. Therefore the same 10 punters earn the website £10/week.

Yes :)

Think I need to hire you as my Communications Director :)

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HOLA4422

I suspect the only way of reading the online Times for free post-June will be via torrent websites.

I still don't expect there'll be many takers.

You don't need to be a student of Martin Lewis to know that paying two quid a week, or over a hundred pounds a year, to read information that is readily available elsewhere is a silly waste money.

Don't think it'll last long, though. Online readership plummets, so online advertising revenue plummets, other papers don't follow suit, so the Times eventually becomes free again!

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somehow WSJ is charging $18/month for their ipad app; more expensive than their print & combined online subs package at $12/month

Yes, but they are selling to Apple users, who often aren't the sharpest tools in the box when it comes to spending more money than they really need to.

(Dons flame retardant suit and ducks for cover.)

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Yes, but they are selling to Apple users, who often aren't the sharpest tools in the box when it comes to spending more money than they really need to.

(Dons flame retardant suit and ducks for cover.)

Coo, thats almost a decent pr0n sub... Reckon the adult services providers could get a boost out of selling syndicated news and financial advice to their punters...

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