The Times' paywall details revealed
Jinfo Blog

28th March 2010

By Penny Crossland

Item

We have been reading about News International’s plans to introduce a paywall to Times Online for many months (see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27062 ,http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27766 and http://www.vivavip.com/go/e27220), now we finally know the details of what the charges will be. Rather than introducing a freemium business model, like ft.com, Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk) will, from June, be a paid-only site, charging customers £1 per day or £2 per week for a subscription - not much deliberation required there - that will give them access to articles from The Times and the Sunday Times online. According to the accompanying press release (http://digbig.com/5bbhhj), print subscribers will get free access to the web site. The new site will be called TheTimes.co.uk . The press release goes on to state that ““At a defining moment for journalism, this is a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition. We are proud of our journalism and unashamed to say that we believe it has value. “This is just the start. The Times and The Sunday Times are the first of our four titles in the UK to move to this new approach. We will continue to develop our digital products and to invest and innovate for our customers.” A clear indication then that News International is planning to put all its titles behind a paywall in the near future. Although it is hard to imagine that readers of the publisher’s lower brow publications will want to pay to access their online editions. In the meantime, The Times’ competitors have been predictably scathing in their reaction to the news. The Guardian columnist Jeff Jarvis accused Murdoch of “trying to transpose old business models to a new business reality” and questioning whether Times readers will remain loyal to the digital edition if a similar story is only “ a click away” on the BBC or Google (http://digbig.com/5bbhje). The Times editor acknowledged that the paper is likely to lose many of its unique users, but is hoping to attract more regular readers. Quite a gamble. From an information professional’s point of view, paying £1 every now and then to obtain that crucial article is not going to be a hardship. After all, the pay-as-you-go costs for Factiva, for example are considerably higher per article.

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