darwin Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11671984 Publishers of the Times and Sunday Times have revealed for the first time how many people are paying to read their newspapers online or on mobiles. They say 105,000 customers have so far paid to go behind the papers' paywall . A further 100,000 people have a joint subscription to read the newspapers digitally and in print, the papers add. The figures have been eagerly awaited by publishers and advertisers since the two papers went behind an online paywall four months ago. Pure comedy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHERWICK Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11671984 Pure comedy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hedgefunded Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 At that rate their domain name will be up for sale soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbn Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 that is way more than i would have expected Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 there are probably about 100,000 political advisers and "reporters" that need to see what the times is saying everyday. the public?.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrink Proof Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 Hence the superficially glossy but desperate-feeling TV ads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwin Posted November 2, 2010 Author Share Posted November 2, 2010 there are probably about 100,000 political advisers and "reporters" that need to see what the times is saying everyday. the public?.... Spot on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgia O'Keeffe Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 there are probably about 100,000 political advisers and "reporters" that need to see what the times is saying everyday. the public?.... good point well made, 100K is fck all when you take out all the subscriptions through company expenses for those requiring access for work, you are probably left with 2 public subscribers called Mick and Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ngn Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 Is that total people or active subscribers? someone at work took up the introductory offer for a month and then canned it... he might still be included in those numbers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
50sQuiff Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 As many have pointed out, a substantial number of this 100,000 will be PR dollies (globally), politicos and their bag carriers, academia and god knows how many public sector institutions. I wonder how many real, private sector sector punters are left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 Yeh and I don't like it. Decided I prefer the Times in print and The Telegraph online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattyfc Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 These figures are meaningless. They need to give a breakdown of the numbers. Total revenue generated from on-line subscriptions would be far more useful. I doubt we will get that. Does anyone really trust newscorp to give accurate data out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
50sQuiff Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 These figures are meaningless. They need to give a breakdown of the numbers. Total revenue generated from on-line subscriptions would be far more useful. I doubt we will get that. Does anyone really trust newscorp to give accurate data out. In my experience you tend to push out data like this when you feel like it's enviably strong and will resonate with punters and rivals. You don't put out inaccurate data that surprises to the downside anyway. I therefore conclude that they think this is good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 These figures are meaningless. They need to give a breakdown of the numbers. Total revenue generated from on-line subscriptions would be far more useful. I doubt we will get that. Does anyone really trust newscorp to give accurate data out. If its still going in 5 years and the shares are returning fortunes, we shall know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cardiffone Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 bet you all love the daily mail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richc Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 These figures are meaningless. They need to give a breakdown of the numbers. Total revenue generated from on-line subscriptions would be far more useful. I doubt we will get that. Does anyone really trust newscorp to give accurate data out. They do say that half the 100k are people who have paid £1 for 1 days access, with the rest being online subscribers or people paying for access on an iPad. Thus, they've had fewer than 50,000 people take out a one month subscription. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbn Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 bet you all love the daily mail Only when my blood pressure plummets to dangerously low levels Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahBell Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 I listened to this first thing. A tiny readership that they didn't say were regular subscribers or just number of purchases... and then they said that the guaduan and other online papers make about £20M each a year from the online advertising. If they contine the pay model then they are doomed. Seriously so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecrashingisles Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 that is way more than i would have expected The Anthea Turner thread had more readers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbn Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 The Anthea Turner thread had more readers. Ah - but way less than I would have expected Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
worzel Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 The number of subscribers does not give anywhere near the whole picture. I would not be quite so quick to write it off as a failure (although I don't believe its the right way to go). There are lots of dynamics in a web business about the revenue streams. If the Timesonline can build the number of subscribers, then those subscribers are probably worth many times each what a non paying reader of the news is worth to advertisers as they have already been filtered out as people that will pay for something (ignoring those that are on work subscriptions), and the revenue alone from the subscriptions would be equivalent to a pretty meaty ad revenue. It will be intresting to see what happens, but I think that the experience of the film and music industry should be telling them that with ctrl c and ctrl v, paying for online content is a niche market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
northwestsmith2 Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 The guardian has about 250K sales but they are much bigger online than offline. Not as big as the Daily Mail online but almost. If the Times can get 100K sales over 500K offline then premium online content has to be worth it for low circulation papers like the Guardian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikthe20 Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 A friend's brother writes for The Times - most of the journos are thoroughly pissed off about this - people just aren't reading their stuff, and that to an egotistical journo is a big downer. I wonder if it will affect their ability to retaiin/recruit staff. Having said that, now I've got a Kindle I have it download several newspapers (I don't like to read just one biased newspaper) from the web every morning and it costs me nowt and doesn't include ads - they really are going to have to do something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newbie Posted November 2, 2010 Share Posted November 2, 2010 "The Times" subscription model - an example of how not to do things on the internet. Another Murdoch technology failure. An earlier one was One.Tel. But when you have a lot of cash, you can afford to make huge mistakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwin Posted November 2, 2010 Author Share Posted November 2, 2010 A friend's brother writes for The Times - most of the journos are thoroughly pissed off about this - people just aren't reading their stuff, and that to an egotistical journo is a big downer. I wonder if it will affect their ability to retaiin/recruit staff. Having said that, now I've got a Kindle I have it download several newspapers (I don't like to read just one biased newspaper) from the web every morning and it costs me nowt and doesn't include ads - they really are going to have to do something. If people aren't reading your stuff, then you are not relevant anymore. It wouldn't be surprising if the staff did want to move on. They've completely pulled the rug out from underneath themselves. That's quite a feat, really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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