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What has putting up a paywall done for the folks at the Times? Driven away most of their readers, predictably. Only 150,000 signed up for “Times+” accounts, and only 15,000 of them actually agreed to pay when their free trial ran out, according to an unconfirmed report on Beehive City, written by former Times media correspondent Dan Sabbagh. "This figure, apparently, is considered disappointing,” he writes.
And with good reason. Based on those figures only 12% of the Times pre-paywall readership was even willing to sign up for the free trial, according to PaidContent, and only 10% of that group actually decided to pay, meaning a slim 1.2% of original readers have agreed to pony up. Even during the free month, visits fell 58%; they were down by 67% once the paywall went up—which might actually be better-than-expected. It also has 12,500 iPad customers, which is a pretty nice number given the relatively low number of iPad owners.
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19 comments
scytherius
Jul 19, 2010 7:37 PM CDT
Of COURSE. Everyone with a brain knows the pay walls will NOT work.
rocklobster
Jul 19, 2010 7:36 PM CDT
My fear is that we already know that advertising on the Web edition of a good newspaper or magazine, just doesn't cut it, can't make the numbers work. Which means that we will loose the best of investigative journalists, where a story can take six weeks to work out into a true and honest news story. And, that good journalist, from a medium to large city is getting paid over $100,000/year. The deep and solid stories will go away.
Though, in Colorado, a new paper was about to shut its doors for good. A business man in town, really understood that the town needed a newspaper. He bought it, then shut down the Web site until further notice. He got back some of the former and very good writers. He prints, I believe, three times a week. All ready they have - and this is in four months - doubled their subscriptions. The paper itself had to become better - and in this case that meant more local. Real news, but, not just rehashed stories from a service or another paper. They are in the black for the first time in three years.
The Web site may open back-up, but if it does, it will have the weather, traffic, some national sports, for the local sports are covered by the print paper. They are working on a digital version, the exact same paper, just one can read it on their Kindle or iPad. That may be ready in three months. The subscription rate is the same as the actual paper version. Buy both, a discount. Makes sense. This may not work for every paper, but I do see how we are losing some of the better journalists. And, what I see in the post-college demographics, is that they are so used to bouncing on the Web, having information at their fingertips, heck, I do it every day. Yet, I don't want them to miss what good journalism can be. I get the National Geographic in the well know magazine style, and I pay for the interactive version each month also. It can provide rich reading material.
All said, I feel that there will be a mix of how we get the better journalism and it will depend on the size of communities, and the types of communities. Are they just commuter developments and there isn't a sense of a community, or is there a strong local community which wants good local news and will pay for it. This is a study of economics, anthropology, and the variety of people we have in this great country. I wish them all luck in finding a model that works for each of them.
sandmannc40
Jul 19, 2010 4:44 PM CDT
98.8% of Times Readers. Whew only 15,000 agreed to pay. That means 1,249,950 dropped the Times if 98.8 is an accurate percentage. That is a huge number of viewers to lose. Times is going the way of the Dodo Bird.
