Times Paywall Blocks 90% of Traffic 311
Jamie was one of several readers to note the not particularly surprising results of the recent Times switch to a pay-wall. Apparently a 90% drop in readership is the reward. But then again, if they are paying real money, it might still be ok for them. It doesn't look very good though.
Re:Figures are good for them (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The real question (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me like the Times would have been better off offering *premium* content to subscribers rather than closing off the entire site altogether."
I'm pretty sure that this is the model that the NYT abandoned 6 or 7 years ago as basically not worth the trouble. I guess they decided that advertising was worth more to them at the time. They've been talking about bringing back a paywall lately. I wonder how this result will impact that decision.
They might find more revenue with premium content only available thru subscriptions using dedicated, well designed iPhone/iPad apps.
Re:10% remains? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The real question (Score:5, Interesting)
You can have the best reporters in the world, but if they're speaking to an empty room, they might as well not exist.
So, my understanding of this whole very interesting situation, is that journalism used to work by rewarding the journalists who went out and got a scoop, did investigative reporting or uncovered some huge scandal. That information was priceless and they would spend precious hours building up that report for an air date. Once their channel or printed paper ran that story, it would take a day or more for the rest to follow suit. Meanwhile you had a whole day of the public's attention on your channel/newspaper/magazine.
Enter the internet. For all intents and purposes of this discussion, she is the instantaneous transmission of such news stories. And duplication. How much time are you the center of attention when you break the story? A minute? Two minutes? You could have the best damned reporters in the world and some percentage of people will settle on reading a headline off of Slashdot or Google News that reads: "Murdoch Loses 90% of Readers with Times Paywall" instead of going to the source that called the Times and got that datum. And if I run a blog, all I need do is paraphrase everything in your article and suddenly I'm a contender for the endpoint of this information.
It seems to me like the Times would have been better off offering *premium* content to subscribers rather than closing off the entire site altogether.
What premium content do you have in mind? Do you think that doing even more exhaustive research on a story is going to change any of what I just explained? And what are you going to do when a blogger subscribes to your $5 per week premium content and then blogs about all of it at freetimes.blogspot.com? What then? Copyright lawsuits? Nobody cares. People say "offer premium content" with a wave of their hands. Well, what did you have in mind? I tried to discuss an alternative of this on Slashdot [slashdot.org] to no avail where basically there would be a pyramid of fractions of ad payments from those subscribed to your site cascading up to the original source.
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, /. itself is a pretty good example of how this can work. The basics are available for free, but subscribers get nice perks. I'm more than happy to pay extra for those perks.
What "premium content" does Slashdot offer us as subscribers, exactly? We get plums 20 minutes to an hour ahead of the rest of the people and we can get a set number of pages without ads.
Was this your answer to what 'premium' content The Times should offer its readers? I have read many of your posts and have a genuine interest in what you might have for ideas to this very broad and allegedly large problem online news sources are facing. And they cannot retreat back to their old ways because the internet is here and is here to stay.
But I never would have even considered subscribing if, on my first visit to the site, I had been greeted with a big wall that said "You can't see ANYTHING here until you pay us.
I'm not aware that this is the case. Do you see this when you visit The Times [thetimes.co.uk]? I am able to read the front page. On other sites like WSJ, they give you a nice little summary and then ask you to pay to read the full on details. Is that the correct way to do premium content? I may sound like a smartass but this topic interests me as I support many local bands through premium content by buying additional artwork, LPs and various digital artifacts along with their albums if I enjoy them. How do I do the same for my favorite news sites?
Broken record (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup: Paywall bad idea. They will reap the consequences, blah blah blah.
The hardest thing they're going to have to learn to grasp in new media economics is that it's not just their business model that's changing. It's not just that they're going to have to stop expecting people to pay for their services like they did before. Their entire industry is going through a massive shift. Personally, the only way I see newspapers surviving is that they become tremendously small outfits. 10-man operations that produce solely for the web and offer a print-on-demand version for those who are interested. Your staff of a dozen reporters and the hundred people who support them aren't going to last here. Print journalism as an industry just can't support those people the way it used to.
Is journalism dead? No. But I think massive news companies are. Journalists and the "Ace Reporter" are going to become free agents. Newspapers are going to become aggregators of the information they collect, and they'll likely have to secure a story with a fee or a retainer. I have sympathy for the people whose jobs are disappearing, but I think every time a job disappears, a new industry grows and more jobs are created.
In a semi-related note, I think that DC should do a Superman storyline where Clark gets laid-off because the Planet can't support his job anymore.
Sometimes some are too early (premium content) (Score:4, Interesting)
Berner Zeitung (one of the two main papers in the Swiss capital) used this approach about 10 or so years ago, but (unfortunately, I thought) shut it down after a bit over a year.
What they did was to allow anyone free access to the full articles of the current day, but at the same time offer an online subscription for (IIRC) ~USD 40,-/yr. The online subscriber got some extra benefits in being able to access all full articles - not just the current day; and were able to download pdf page views of the actual papers as well, and give a search functionality for their news archive.
Overall at the time, I really liked the offering, and was saddened when they shut it down (not profitable)... I just think, they had been too early trying it. I think it could be a decent model for a lot of papers today...
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
Gazeta Wyborcza [gazeta.pl], about the biggest newspaper in Poland has an interesting approach: current online content is free, archive is paid. You can search it, get a short blurb of found articles but to access them in full, you have to purchase access to the archive, about $5/hour, or more expensive options like monthly etc.
I tried to..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The real question (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, except Slashdot works on a totally different economy of scale than a newsgathering organization.
How many traffic/camera helicopters does Slashdot have in the air? How many reporters do they hire in the Gulf of Mexico to cover the oil spill? None. They have volunteers submit "reprints" from other organizations who are themselves "reprinters" or in some cases the actual newsgathering organization. They have more volunteers who audit them, and more volunteers to run a vibrant discussion community.
The money gleaned from running Slashdot after paying for bandwidth and a little hookers and blow for the shareholders could never support even a handful of independent cub reporters, much less a decent newsgathering crew or a reprint subscription to Reuters.
Slashdot is actually a prime example of why the traditional print news media are having trouble. It costs a good deal of money to get good coverage of the news, and traditionally subscribers have paid for that. But now it's available everywhere, for free.
They'll dry up, and the only organizations left will be those that are big enough to use economies of scale in advertising to raise enough money. Which means the population of paid professional newsgatherers is going to plummet, replaced by reprints of the gist of Twitterstorms and the like.
May not be a complete disaster, but the Times (and the Gazette, and the Post) they are a'changin.
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
I cannot speak for grandparent, but some options for premium content or pay advantages could be ad-free viewing, a convenient search function, access to older articles and/or larger background articles.
Ability to bookmark and permanently save "favorite articles". Ability to "like" on facebook or whatever. Ability to comment blog, or even more valuable, filter comments to remove the idiots. Ability to suggest articles to friends / family. Ability to directly email the author, and possibly even get a response. Graphics displayed at 150 dpi instead of 50 dpi. Graphics displayed in full 24 bit color instead of monochrome. Ability to mod up and mod down articles (people will actually pay for the privilege of doing free quality control for you). Access to the purely "fun" non-news parts of the paper, like a really nice crossword puzzle interface or whatever it is people use dead tree newspapers for (I'm under 40, so I don't get newspapers and have no idea what to do with "yesterdays news, tomorrow"). All kinds of exciting ideas.
Or you could just block everyone, that being the express ticket to irrelevancy.
Slashdot readers are missing the point! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Times understand that they are undergoing an initial loss to set a new standard in online news. They hope that other news sites will follow suit. If and after they do, you will not be able to get the story on any other web site. Subsequently, subscribers should increase and revenue should increase.
So, it's not surprising that they're not making a profit on this switch, because frankly, they're probably not trying to.
Clearing out the riff-raff (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot readers are missing the point! (Score:1, Interesting)
This is true. They actually projected a 90% loss and so if this figure is correct it's no surprise and The Times paywall is working as the owners expected, and not much of a headline either. The 66% figure is probably connected to the trial offer of 30 days trial access (I think it was at no charge).
So what is the purpose of the paywall? Obviously News International prefer to have a small number of paying customers than a huge number who pay nothing. It will almost certainly raise the quality of the online comments (real names, people who care enough to pay) which in turn may build one of the few worthwhile community forums around a news site. Most are populated by anonymous bores exchanging tiresome platitudes and cliches. If The Times can build a public community that is stimulating, reasonably well mannered and constructive, with a genuine interaction between the journalists and their readers, then they will be adding real value to the product and going a long way towards justifying the fee.
The other highly relevant issue is the printed edition. The Times isn't just another rag, it has a reputation and status acquired over hundreds of years, not a decade. People do want to read it, and if the avenue of a free online edition is no longer available then many people may well return to buying a printed edition, if not daily then at least regularly. If the printed edition can remain viable while competitors struggle and fail then I'd count that as a real achievement.
*Looks* like a success, actually (Score:2, Interesting)
On the face of it, this actually looks like a success -- if you believe that they actually retained an amazing 10% (about which I'm skeptical) and if they can sustain that rate (i.e. people don't tire of paying after a month or two).
Ads don't pay much. When I get an IO for an ad that pays a penny per impression ($10 CPM), I am very happy. If there are n people paying 2 pounds (I'll call that $3) per week, then to match that, the free-access-but-ads model with 10*n people would need to generate $0.30 per week per user from ads. You would have to be pretty lucky to get advertisers to pay that much.
Free online NYT access led me to subscribe (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm probably a minority dwarfed by free-loading readers, but free online NYT access led me to buy a full 7-day a week subscription to the paper.
I used to (and still do) go to Google News for my daily news digest (one of many sources I'd visit). Over time, I noticed that many of the stories I was interested were from either the NY Times or the LA Times. Furthermore, I noticed that for stories I'd read on many sites linked to from Google News, the NY Times (and LA Times) versions were regularly better written and more informative in my opinion.
Due to this (and the fact that I live in the suburbs of NYC) I started to regularly read the full paper online on the NYT website. After a few months of this, I decided that I found this quality reporting valuable, and worth supporting. Furthermore, I relocated a little further away from the city and was now commuting by train instead of by car. So I then decided to by a subscription. Now I have the paper delivered every day, and they have me as a full, loyal subscriber. All because of the free online access they provided.
But for everyone of me, there are probably a lot of free-loaders.
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
But what good is it to chase readers who go so far as to block ads and don't think the content maker is entitled to anything?
Except that the content maker isn't entitled to anything.
Just because you make content doesn't mean I have to give you money. I'm not going to mail a check to Stephen King just because he's written a new novel. I'm only going to give you money if I decide your content is worth it. How exactly that works varies somewhat from one medium to the next... Maybe you show me some previews and I decide to pay for a ticket to go see your movie. Or maybe I read the first few pages or chapter of your book and then decide to buy the thing. Or maybe I'm so thrilled with the content of your blog that I donate some money to you. But just turning out content doesn't entitle you to anything at all.
Generally speaking, I block ads. It isn't because I'm a malicious asshole that wants to see the entire web publishing industry fall down and die - it's because I don't want to waste my bandwidth loading advertising that I'm not going to look at anyway.
If I like a site enough, and there isn't some handy way to subscribe or donate, I'll enable ads on that site. But I'll disable them again if they're too annoying. Google adword blocks are great, I hardly even notice them. Flashing, animated, audible banner crap is not great - I'll disable that shit in a heartbeat.
If the sites I peruse don't like that, they don't have to put up with it. It's their choice. They can hide behind a paywall if they want to. And if I care enough about the site - if the content they offer is genuinely unique and useful and interesting - I might just pay for it. But if I can get that content elsewhere, without the annoying ads or without having to subscribe or whatever else, I'm going to.
Re:The real question (Score:3, Interesting)
Was this your answer to what 'premium' content The Times should offer its readers?
There are lots and lots of options here...off the top of my head:
1) Access to every article of every edition. If someone comes unsubscribed from a Google link, they get the story they are looking for. Maybe the day's headlines. But that's it. Subscribers can get access to it all.
2) Links between articles, followup stories, categories to browse. Read an article on Xe Services LLC? Subscribers get a list of stories to pick from that go back years, including the name change (Blackwater Worldwide, for those that don't know) and all the controversy they've had.
3) Sudoku, crossword, all the rest of the semi-interactive entertainment
4) The ability to comment, perhaps?
5) Indexed, searchable, bookmarkable, clickable classified. Let anyone browse them like a paper. Give your subscribers beefed up tools to manage them.
6) Stock ticker links to company profiles, all the stories ever run about them, stock histories, etc. Again, let the non-subscribers see them like a newspaper page - static bits of information.
7) Set your website up like a newspaper for non-subscribers. Let them turn pages, navigate to page 6 to keep on reading. Give your subscribers links. Or "whole article on one page".
8) Links to every company, sports team, organization noted in your news for subscribers. Non-subscribers will need to google it.
There are lots of ways to still provide your information, but make it worthwhile for people to pay a little money. Many of these wouldn't be hard to code up templates for once. After that, you just publish your information as usual, and you automagically have benefits for subscribers, yet aren't pushing people away. And it shouldn't cost a ton of money to do so. Now, will everyone want to pay for these perks? Hell no. But I bet they'd get more money than they are getting now, with the dual failing options of "free" and "paywall".
Re:Clearing out the riff-raff (Score:1, Interesting)
They've just filtered out all the freeloaders and now have a nice exclusive club of readers willing to pay for something on the Internet. I would say that's far, far more valuable than all the riff-raff that want something for free. They'll be charging top-dollar for advertising/features now
Um, no. This is not really how advertising works.
Advertisers, in general, are looking to reach the largest proportion of people with money who will be interested in the ad.
This may have some benefit to the Times if, all other things being equal, the company has a choice of placing an ad in two places with the same size of readership. However, on the internet, the potential size of readership on other sites is so large that it probably wouldn't make it worthwhile.
Maybe if the Times were specialized in content enough to target a certain population, but I don't think that's true. And ad placement is a general problem with internet advertising that has nothing to do whatsoever with whether people are behind a paywall or not.
The problem with all of this--as was pointed out in a recent Atlantic Monthly article focusing on Google--is that print publishers just don't get it. I used to think that this might be about some fundamental problem with the economics of internet, blah, blah, blah. As I've read more about it, though, and spent time with those in the publishing industry, the more I've realized that it's really as simple as the fact that they don't have a clue how to run a website. They are trying to maintain the overhead of a print publishing system while increasingly relying on internet economics. Moreover, does anyone--anyone at all--really think that news organizations have figured out how to deliver ad content on the internet in a way that's effective and pleasant for the readers? If it was, things like adblock wouldn't be so successful (and yes, I do think there could be pleasant ad placement--it happens all the time in print newspapers).
The real solution is for the newspapers to cut their print division completely and focus exclusively online. Figure out how to place ads that readers actually want to see, as opposed to ads that the crappy ad companies use to manipulate clickthroughs with annoying tricks. Create worthwhile, but secondary (maybe more detailed?) premium content that people will want to pay for. And link the hell out of your stories to every search engine you can.
Some of this (like the first step above) is maybe difficult because of an unfortunate transition in demographics that's out of the hands of the newspapers (e.g., appealing simultaneously to older print-only readers and younger online-only readers). But it has to be done.
I'm skeptical of the success of the Times experiment. The question really is, who are the people buying these subscriptions and will they continue to pay? My guess is that, over time, they will lose some of those pay subscriptions, and they won't be replaced by other purchasers.
Re:The real question (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't have a problem with ads. I have a problem with scripts. So I run a script blocker.
It just happens to have the the side effect of blocking many ads.