So, with the announcement that the Times is going to start charging to access its websites in June, what do you think?
They're charging £1 for a days access or £2 for the week.
So, with the announcement that the Times is going to start charging to access its websites in June, what do you think?
They're charging £1 for a days access or £2 for the week.
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They will lose the vast majority of their readership I think - this will probably be offset by the charges although I would expect them to lose a little bit overall due to the loss of advertising revenue.
Charging for online news is perfectly viable imo if they get the "added bonuses" right. Now I am not quite sure what these extras should be myself yet, but I think The Times have got it wrong..I heard on the radio today that their added content for subscribers would be "heavy use of moving images and audio/video content"..urgh sounds like the Sky News website these days. That is..totally unusable and full of junk that no-one [who is going to pay for news in the first place] wants to waste their time with.
In any case, I already pay for my online news..http://news.bbs.co.uk - I pay for this through my licence fee..
It's marmite all over again. There are those who will, and those who wouldn't if their lives depended on it.
I pay for a Time subscription (occasionally Newsweek and Economist) and that's where I get my fix of editorial. I don't like reading much editorial online, I prefer to dip into articles to keep up to date with the news. As with Spud, news.bbc.co.uk is perfectly suited for that.
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Thing is, the FT has fairly unique content.
I know that each paper has its own angle, and I do like the Times, but if I can get more or less the same story from the BBC or another of the online newspapers then why would I be tempted to go for the Times and cough up?
I wonder whether they've considered how they're going to police copying of their stories as well... I mean, on a couple of forums I post on, it's fairly common to see members post up newspaper articles and then comment on them. Are they going to start taking legal action against website owners to have these articles taken down, now that they're paid for? And if they are, then that was only reason I ever went to particular news websites anyway, so I probably won't be visiting the Times again. Will be interesting to see how it pans out for them, but I can't help but think it won't work.
The thing with non-niche news publications like the Times (not the FT, obviously), is that I, and I think an increasing number of people, have no allegiance to any particular publication. A lot of us are savvy enough now to know that if we get all of our news from one place, it's going to be very one-sided.
So we're not likely to start paying for news from these places; we're used to looking for alternatives, after all...
I much prefer the Telegraph and Guardian anyway, and wouldnt mind paying £2 a week to read them.
Unless The Times begins to improve the quality of their content online (more in depth, more coverage), or even develop some form of specialism (although this contradicts with being a general newspaper), I'm not totally convinced this new business model will work whilst there are alternative free news providers online (covering those very same stories).
In short, given they will charge, I'm intrigued how they will place and differentiate themselves in this already saturated new market.
I certainly wouldnt pay for online newspapers. To many free alternatives. As said earlier in the thread the general newspapers will have to differentiate themselves somehow.
The question is are there enough brand loyal people, people who don't know you can get news from many other sources because they where born in 1940, and are stupid.
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