Murdoch's UK Paywall a Miserable Failure 428
David Gerard writes "As part of his war against free, Rupert Murdoch put the Times and Sunday Times of London behind a paywall. Michael Wolff of Newser asks how that's working out for him. You can guess: miserable failure: 'Not only is nobody subscribing to the website, but subscribers to the paper itself — who have free access to the site — are not going beyond the registration page. It's an empty world.' Not that this wasn't entirely predictable." Update: 07/17 01:41 GMT by T : Frequent contributor Peter Wayner writes skeptically that the Newsday numbers should be looked at with a grain of salt: "I believe they were charging $30/month for the electronic edition and $25/month for the dead tree edition which also offered free access to the electronic edition. In essence, you had to pay an extra $5 to avoid getting your lawn littered with paper. The dead tree edition gets much better ad rates and so it is worth pushing. It's a mistake to see the raw numbers and assume that the paywall failed."
LOL! (Score:0, Insightful)
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Hahahaha! Hahahahaha! LOL!
Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
This experiment has been tried over the last few decades (ever since the papers discovered the commercial Internet) and has failed miserably every time. Some magazines/papers even closed their doors after they tried it because they invested too much money in something that had 0 return on investment and alienated their existing audience that was actually paying their bills.
Oppinions (Score:5, Insightful)
This is being presented as a fact, but its merely a oppinion based on insider information. No where it states any real numbers. Dont get me wrong, I dont agree with Murdoch's ways but that doesnt warrant factless bashing.
I am utterly surprised. (Score:4, Insightful)
Who would have thought people would object to paying for information (or the closest Murdoch equivalent thereof; this guy owns Fox News) that is also provided for free?
It's not the paywall that's failed (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally Unexpected Of The Day (Score:5, Insightful)
The world is FULL of idiots.
Even rich ones.
Lemme give the man a (free, even) clue: On the one side, he wants to *get paid* for all the Free News his "papers" are putting onto "the web". On the other hand he completely ignores all the FREE EYEBALLS that search engines like Google bring to his website.
While incessantly whining about people who 'want something for nothing', what he actually does is treat "free eyeball traffic" as being "worth nothing". Small Wonder His Website No Longer Gets Eyeballs.
Murdock: HEY GOOGLE, STOP SENDING EYEBALLS TO MY WEBSITE without paying me for my content
Google: You had me at "stop sending eyeballs to my website" - all you had to do was ask.
Remember though... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's not the paywall that's failed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Duh... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'll bet you remember every one of those decades of commercial Internet.
No? Not even one? Yeah, I bet you wouldn't remember the one very clearly if you're young enough that you thought there had been more than that.
Re:I am utterly surprised. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think that's the only problem: internet news tends to be very flaky to push out "interesting" articles and it allows "on the fly editting" compared to a paper for example: unnecessary sensationalists "breaking news!" banners, reedits and a general lower quality of written content.
So, people don't want to pay for sensationalist articles but would if the content would be, as you say, unique, solid and giving a decent added value: If I take the train and read the free Metro paper, log online and keep an eye on the newsfeeds from different RSS-feeds or different newspapers there's very cleary just some channels distributing the same "news" but depending on the papers "target crowd", reworded, restyled and reprioritized.
The "online news" seems often just like a gossip magazine.
Re:still early days (Score:5, Insightful)
Inevitable Future (Score:3, Insightful)
So I'm expecting the usual reaction from the Slashdot audience cheering the gloriously free nature of information on the net and our ability to stick it to the man. And don't get me wrong, I'm a (free) news junkie myself. But how sustainable is the current paradigm? . I'm asking a sincere question, as the journalists really do have to get paid eventually. Advertisers? Probably not with the click rates the way they are nowadays. I don't see any any alternative to Murdoch's vision - other than some of the micropayment schemes that have been proposed. As the media outlets adjust to the new world and figure out ways to regulate, it's hard to see how this vision is anything but inevitable.
This explains a lot (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember Murdoch constantly advocating that other publications go for a paywall. This is why: if he puts things behind a paywall, then he'll be creamed in the marketplace, but if everyone does it then everyone will be forced to pay somebody, thus creating a market for Internet news.
Of course, he's being an idiot, because there's this little organization called the BBC which provides very good coverage and is publicly controlled.
Re:Oppinions (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, factless bashing should never occur in proximity to a Murdoch media outlet...
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
The obvious reason why WSJ and FT succeeded is because they provide stock information which is a heavily regulated market that costs a *lot* to get into and to provide. Therefore there aren't any free alternatives (*) -- everyone who offers stock information charges for it, and the audience is used to this fact and accepts it.
The brand recognition and virtual monopoly position enjoyed by these two papers would also have helped.
(*) Yes, I know there are free stock listing all over the place, but you'll notice that all of them have a time delay of at least several hours. Real-time stock data is only available to those willing to pay for it.
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
ever since the papers discovered the commercial Internet
Commercial internet... Commercial internet... Commercial internet... Jees I'm getting old. I miss the nineties and early zeros when the closest thing to a "commercial internet" was a web page with a single ad banner, which everyone bitched and moaned about to no avail. None of the sites I ran back then had any advertising at all; like most other folks' sites then, it was a labor of love.
The damned greedheads seem to ruin everything. Thank god people aren't falling for Murdoch's nonsense (yet).
Murdoch's terrible Faux News was on the TV in the bar last night and gees, if anyone would have talked about Bush when he was in office the way Murdoch's "news" station talks about Obama, Faux News and the neocons would have called them "traitors" and screamed bloody murder.
Re:I am utterly surprised. (Score:4, Insightful)
No wait, on second thoughts, make that "Old Fart out of touch with reality" first, then Capitalism and Conservatism...
Re:Duh... (Score:1, Insightful)
Financial papers can charge for access because they are a tool that people use to make more money (not to mention they can be written off as a business expense). When viewed that way, it makes perfect sense. Nearly all of the other papers out there are essentially just passive infotainment.
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Duh... (Score:2, Insightful)
The Economist has been getting this right forever. Full current and back issues, and they never tried to foist PDFs on subscribers instead of HTML.
Re:It's not the paywall that's failed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
They get technology reasonably well. They occasionally call out the occasional walking piece of corruption that other are resigned to (read: Silvio Berlusconi). But editorial-wise, they are very far right. They supported the iraq war, they believed in WMD, and they denied global warming for a very long time (until 2007?).
Far right? Too simplistic. You may not like all their editorial stances, but that does not make them right (sic!). They were and remain skeptical of proposed measures against global warming: would they be effective? would they be efficient? which aren't bad questions to raise for a magazine with that name. Being skeptical is not necessarily 'denying', especially if you prove willing to change your stance with further evidence. They also want to abolish the British monarchy (for starters): not exactly the position one traditionally associates with the conservative right. On Iraqi WMD they were duped and admitted it frankly: so were plenty of other publications and institutions few would call 'right-wing'. They also fell heads-over-heel for Obama.
Me? I'm just a sucker for beatiful and efficient prose, with an occasional dash of dry humour. Would that I could achieve it.
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm interested to see how the FCC plan to impose this on the London Times, the Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Die Welt, Le Monde...
Re:still early days (Score:4, Insightful)
David Mitchell badly misunderstands the news business which is scary as they seem to let him write for major news organizations.
The news has always been free.
The subscription cost (often barely) covered the printing and distribution costs. The Internet is the printer and distributor now, so this is essentially free. That is to say, we don't pay the paper any longer, we pay the ISP. The ads paid for news in the paper era, and Google's income and market cap lead me to believe that there is some potential for ad revenue on the internet.
I question Mr. Mitchel's intellectual honesty in this matter. He suggests that if the pay-walls don't work we'll be left with amateur bloggers writing 'shit'. That is one massive false dichotomy and reveals his true paper-age view of the world. More of my time is spent on blogs than at traditional media outlets [ /. !! ]. /. , this post included :) ] . There will just be less papers reprinting the exact same article (sure there's pure mooches, but who really goes there? really?).
Will there continue to be a shake-up in the news business? Absolutely. More papers will die off, more editors, copy-guys etc will lose their jobs. That doesn't mean all we will be left with is amateur bloggers writing shit [there's enough of that here on
The Internet is a disruptive force (I believe mostly for the better) that allows for more efficient dissemination of information. In other words, the news should get cheaper as it costs less to obtain it. Since the news was already free I can actually foresee a day when readers get paid to read a site - as in news will be cheaper than free. My justification for this? Commercial over-the-air radio pays it's listeners via contests, prizes and give-aways. Google now pays companies to use it's maps. Etc. etc. eTc.
Free isn't a business model, but it has always been and will always be part of many effective and profitable business models. Stop getting hung up on the 'free' part and see the whole.
Re:still early days (Score:5, Insightful)
Because having to fill in forms--any forms--just to look at something on a website is something people just will not do. I think what is really important is not how much they charge (although it does seem a little steep), but is the hassle factor, having to go an find your coupon or whatever is just a pain in the neck. Totally not worth the hassle for most people.
Until there is a micro-payment system that's as easy as no payment at all (like say, the iTunes Store compared to your choice of P2P), there isn't going to be any headway in getting people to pay for this stuff.
Re:It's not the paywall that's failed (Score:3, Insightful)
Bingo. I'd possibly pay for Radio 4, in order to keep it ad free, but the rest of the bunch of Stalinist luvvies can swing on my knob.
The thing that's really boiling my piss at the moment is that much of the (non disposable) programming is now timed to fit on commercial channels. Since there's no commercial breaks in the middle of each program (as opposed to the 15 seconds of DVR skipping that I have to do on other channels), that means there can be upwards of 10 minute of filler in between one program ending and the next starting. It's still advertising, it's just ads for the BBC, and the bit that hacks me off are that they're expensive, self indulgent arty-wankery ads paid for by my Goddamn license money. I'd rather watch a test card than a bunch of CGI fairies, thanks all the same.
Re:Duh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I hate Murdoch and his empire.
I think it's easy for us to look at this and say "Obviously this will fail" and call it predictable. But you know, guys like him built their empires on trial and error and by doing things while everyone else said it was a bad idea.
So I do think it's slightly progressive of him to try this, but it's just too late. If he tried this from the start, the flow of information might be very different.
This applies to lots of things like the RIAA/MPAA too. They really missed their chance to develop pay models and now the stage is set for free access to these media. It's just what people expect now and it's a hard bell to unring.
However, I think the key point is that this happened by mistake and by large media's lack of foresight. If they had it to do over again, we'd have tired internet with limited data rates and micropayment systems on just about any type of content.
I think we should all take a moment and be proud of how the net evolved and count our blessings that we had the lucky streaks we did to end up with such freedoms on the web that we have. And we need to fight hard to protect them.
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like success to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Dramatically fewer people reading Murdoch's crap, and he's still not making any money.
Looks like success from where I'm sitting.
Re:Inevitable Future (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also wondering what people would consider something they'd pay for.
Off the top of my head:
No, the economist IS far right (Score:0, Insightful)
No, the economist IS far right. Libertarian and far-right have been merged, both because they *espouse* "small government" but merely as an opposition to "small corporation". They both want government to be replaced by corporations and want them AS BIG AS POSSIBLE. Hence, the Mil-Ind complex gets big spending: though "big government", this benefits companies not government, making the government the one-stop-shop for company profiles.
They aren't skeptical of the proposed MEASURES because they only asked RHETORICAL "would they be effective?" just so that NOTHING WOULD BE DONE. Because that would be interference by government in company business. A very far right thing to do.
"Being skeptical is not necessarily 'denying'" Indeed they aren't. The IPCC scientists are skeptical of the papers supporting AGW. But to deny the evidence is not skepticism. And despite all the evidence, the Economist still doesn't think there's enough proof. This is DENIAL.
Re:Duh... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm glad you somehow missed what the fish-wrappers and celebrity elites were saying while W was in office, but I remember:
1. Bush planned 9/11
2. Bush lied about WMDs
3. Bush is sending citizens to Gitmo
4. Bush banned fetal stem cell research
5. Bush is turning the USA into a theocracy
6. Bush went AWOL
7. Bush is an idiot
8. Bush is an evil genius
9. Bush got everything handed to him because of his dad's connections
10. Bush stole the 2000 election (and even the 2004 election)
11. Bush is spending us into a huge hole... wait, that one was true.
Niche markets (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumer Reports [consumerreports.org] is another periodical website that uses the subscription model (though in that case it is because they don't accept advertising so their reviews can be truly independent). What they have in common with WSJ, Economist and various scientific/medical journals is that they offer highly specialized data to a niche market that is willing to pay a premium for it. General interest newspapers and magazines do not fall into that category which is why the advertising-based model works much better for them.
Re:No, the economist IS far right (Score:3, Insightful)
Ug, so this is the new
All topics are economic in the end (Score:2, Insightful)
On non-economic topics, why would you expect them to be any better than your local newspaper?
The thing is, there are huge and far-reaching implications economic depending on how much humanity needs to adjust carbon output. So a magazine like the economist would, naturally, seek to fully vette theories that are going to drive major policy changes.
There are very few topics at this point in time that are not at the core economic issues, because everything impacts government policy and regulation these days.
Re:Duh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, but if you are left/centrist, this is why you should read them. (re: right wing political views)
I always make sure to read articles / magazines that make me angry. Otherwise, I will insulate myself, and risk becoming religious about my position. I'm more centrist, and tend to read articles from both ends of the political spectrum.
I've read The Economist for a while, and find that yes -- they do indeed tend to lean right. However, they have many articles that do not, and I've found that they do tend to (more often than others) simply attempt to present the facts.
Of course, you must make sure you differentiate between articles of opinion, and articles of news...
Lastly, The Economist tends to target an audience with a bit more intelligence than say.. Fox News... or other tabloid like publications. This makes its articles more palatable.
One last thing. I've often found that the true nutjobs come out at _both_ ends of the political spectrum.. very right or very left of central.
Haven't you noticed his travelling show? (Score:3, Insightful)
He's an old bastard but not a stupid one or even out of touch. He's always operated with a collection of experts on any topic that will get him commercial advantage, and on the internet side he bought an ISP in 1993. I hate the guy since he bought a controlling share and gutted a software company I worked for in 2000, but he's no idiot and he's playing a game to influence governments to tightly control the internet to raise the condition of entry to where eventually only very large companies can compete.
He's playing the game to damage google and stop anything like it from emerging from a small start ever again
Why do the paper subscribers have to register? (Score:3, Insightful)
Type in your choice of unique identifier - subscriber number off the label, home phone number, OR credit card number.
"We found a matching subscription - is this you? Yes/No"
Slap a cookie on the browser - done. No password required.
Yes, someone could fake their way in using just this info, but compared to people not using the site AT ALL it's a minimal concern. If there's a feature on the site that involve some one-off charges THEN you hit the user up for harder verification. Otherwise, keep it simple.
.
I'm perfectly willing to pay ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That means:
1. NO ADVERTISING. If you advertise, particularly the annoying, video and sound (with those extra annoying pop-up - or worse pop-out crap), your customers are the advertisers and my attention is what you are selling. Why should I have to pay you so that you can IRRITATE and ANNOY me by selling MY attention? NO. Adverising is a great, perfectly fine way to pay for FREE content. It is NOT an acceptable way to make some extra money on top of what you charge me.
2. NO TRACKING ME. Again, if I am paying you for a service, that means I don't want you to invade myprivacy. You don't track what I read or when. No record keeping of anything I do. You are allowed to count how many people click on a story, but not whether the same person clicks on story X as also clicks on story Y.
3. Video and sound should all be accompanied by printed summaries. Deaf people (and blind people using text-to speech converter programs) are important customers too and some of us don't like the video - it takes too much time, is lazy, and if I wanted that I would turn on the TV.
4. Better, in depth writing that does not accept stupid statements. Don't just accept statements, VERIFY them. (i.e. treat each of the people you quote the way Politifact.org does and when they give numbers make sure they are telling the truth.) When someone says something really stupid like "this snow storm in the heart of winter disproves global warming", call them on it YOURSELF, don't simply get an opposing point of view.
The Internet did not kill newspaper, a combination of poor writing and advertisers did (the advertisers would rather spend 5 cents to talk sell diapers to pregnant women than 10 cents to sell diapers to everyone). Those same forces rule the internet news market - as long as you let them. If you want to recreate the pay-news market, you need to avoid the problems that killed the newspaper.
Re:No, the economist IS far right (Score:4, Insightful)
Where on earth do you get that from? Daily Kos? The only people consistently against the wars and excessive military spending were the libertarians. Look at Ron Paul's voting record. Democrats generally supported the war and still pursue it. The only people against the bailouts for the big corporations were libertarians as well. Democrats supported them. Libertarians want the government to be one stop shop for corporate profits?! I don't think you can be any further from being right if you tried.
Re:Duh... (Score:4, Insightful)
But editorial-wise, they are very far right. They supported the iraq war, they believed in WMD, and they denied global warming for a very long time (until 2007?).
How is that "very far right"? At the time it began, the Iraq war had widespread favor across the political spectrum, with most of the Senate Democrats voting in favor of it, including the oh-so-very-far-right Hilary Clinton. Belief in WMD was similarly pervasive, since the intelligence community was saying they were there, and no evidence had come out yet to suggest this analysis was incorrect.
I think the end game will play out like this (Score:4, Insightful)
Now the model has shifted. Everyone can read anyone's newspapers, but everyone is annoyed that all you get from any "local" newspaper is the same AP feed (some who charge for it and some who do not). I can see that small papers dropping the AP feed because it isn't useful to them any more. The bandwidth cost to carry information that everyone else has isn't worth it. Then the paper becomes a "local paper" or a "niche paper" again that can justify charging for its content. It will be able to charge because it is covering things that are locally important that you can't get anywhere else.
The AP on the other hand is going to have a problem: With all the small papers dropping them as a source of revenue, they will have to find another way to support themselves. I don't know what that is but they will have to scramble to get it done.
The issue is this: (Score:5, Insightful)
It is hard to develop a user base when you seem to be actively driving away readers and by extension the people who develop your content.
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
They get technology reasonably well. They occasionally call out the occasional walking piece of corruption that other are resigned to (read: Silvio Berlusconi). But editorial-wise, they are very far right. They supported the iraq war, they believed in WMD, and they denied global warming for a very long time (until 2007?).
I wouldn't call the economist far right... they are in favor of legalization of drugs, for instance, and are generally against all forms of prohibitionism. I think they are quite left-wing on many social issues (in favor of civil liberties, etc), and a bit right wing on economy (as in strongly free market oriented).
Re:Duh... (Score:2, Insightful)
The surprising part is that Obama announced he supports the plan.
I never cease to be amazed at the things Obama does that surprise people. Why are you surprised? This is a move that is very good for a limited number of very big companies. Democrats have always been in favor of government regulations that favor big companies (see the latest Fat Cat Enablement...I mean Finance Reform Act, put together by the people who brought you the housing market bubble ans subsequent crash: Barney Frank and Chris Dodd).
Re:Duh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets break it down:
"1. Bush planned 9/11"
false, That was statement by a few conspiracy whackaloons
"2. Bush lied about WMDs"
True.
"3. Bush is sending citizens to Gitmo"
true
"4. Bush banned fetal stem cell research"
federal dollars, however for practical reason that just about killed it.
"5. Bush is turning the USA into a theocracy"
Bring more religion into the government is one of his stated goals
"6. Bush went AWOL"
True.
"7. Bush is an idiot"
True
"8. Bush is an evil genius"
no one ever said that.
"9. Bush got everything handed to him because of his dad's connections"
True.
"10. Bush stole the 2000 election (and even the 2004 election)"
true and true. Clarification: Republicans did. 2000 was shameful and a slap in the face to every American. 2004 was full of wide spread fraud. District not counted, people sent away, voting booths were closed or not st up in heavy democrat counties.
It was shameful. For clarification: The Shameful part has nothing to do with who won.
"11. Bush is spending us into a huge hole... wait, that one was true."
Yes it was. The whole republican party was spending, borrowing and deregulating.
The republican party has very few actually conservatives anymore, and any party that punishes anyone behaving outside of the leader narrowly decided upon views should be abandoned by thinking persons.
.
Re:Duh... (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, you're old and your memory is a fragile thing full of holes. Popups were already a problem in the late 90s. By the early 2000s, there were popups, popunders, flash stuff with sound floating over the content, and random words turned into links that'd show an ad when you moused over them. By 2002 I had a very long hosts file directing stuff to 127.0.0.1.
I remember SOME sites still had only one ad banner back around '96-'97, but those memories have the same misty quality as, say, when people claim that kids today have no respect (implying that some time in the past, they DID have respect).
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the testimony of the UN weapons inspectors, and Hussein Kamel, and Joe Wilson (the diplomat, not the "You lie!" jagoff). And those who noted that the first national security meeting of the Bush administration covered the possibility of invading Iraq, which might be coloring their kitchen-sink approach to justifying an invasion ("He tried to kill mah daddy!"). Oh, and the fact that the chief CIA witness had the codename "Curveball" ferchrissakes. But beisdes all of that, yes, no one doubted the word of the administration.
Re:Duh... (Score:1, Insightful)
> and they denied global warming for a very long time (until 2007?).
Citation please? Are we talking about the same paper? I've been reading The Economist for years.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2006/10/who_will_pay_for_climate_chang [economist.com]
As for Iraq... They did screw that up a bit, but not as badly as the other "news" sources:
http://media.economist.com/countries/Iraq/fromtheeconomist.cfm?next=721 [economist.com]
Re:Duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
They strongly supported John McCain until it became obvious that Palin was sinking his ship.
McCain's ship was already sinking by the time he chose Palin out of desperation. It actually worked for awhile, too, if you remember, until the media tore her apart.
Uh, the media did not tear her apart. She self-destructed by whiffing on the softball questions tossed to by Katie Couric, after which her access to the media was limited to Fox News. It soon became clear that she was an airhead (or worse). McCain's choice of such a woefully inadequate running mate showed that his judgement was indeed poor, and as such the so-called "Independent voters" broke for Obama.
So, what you call "the media tear[ing] her apart" is really an all-too-rare example of the media doing their job.
Re:Not to put too fine a point on it... (Score:3, Insightful)
SO... when Fox News is redressed for the inaccuracy of their 'reporting', they run and hide by claiming that their shows are 'opinion', and that there should be no expectation of accuracy
I do not see any other News program using that same excuse, so NO I am not a partisan shill and yes the other NEWS networks are many scintillas better
Maybe you missed this story yesterday:
http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/07/14/1235220 [slashdot.org]
It seems the people get so accustomed to the lies that Fox spreads, that they are unable to accept the truth when they are exposed to it. If that is not damaging America, then I do not know what would
Re:Duh... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a subscriber to the Economist too, but the reason I think it works is their content is not just warmed-over daily news. It's a collection of well-researched, unique and interesting weekly essays. Murdoch is never going to be able to do the same thing with the Times.
Rich.
Re:still early days (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried reading TFA and heres what I got (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok right at the top of this 'journalists' article:
Will his paywall work is the biggest story in the media business, and it would be quite a journalistic coup to document the progress, or lack thereof, that's being made in trying to convince a skeptical world to shell out 2£ ($3) a week for what's heretofore been free.
If this is the kind of crap that 'free' journalism produces I'd gladly pay for something written by someone who can actually construct readable sentences...
This guy is a blogger who likes to think he is a journalist. Ehm... like most of them I guess...
Re:Duh... (Score:2, Insightful)
Even when they don't publish AP feeds directly, it is clear that they are just rewriting them. Usually they dumb the article down as well.
I can access the AP's feeds over the internet for free. Why pay to have them rolled onto a dead tree?