Posts Tagged ‘print’

Today sees the disappearance of The Times and The Sunday Times behind the dreaded paywall. An introductory offer of £1 per week for the first 30 days, and £2 per week after that is the only way you’ll get to see what both news sites have to offer. But how likely are we to fork out for content, and will we really miss anything if we don’t?

The staff at The Times seem very confident – at a recent PR Newswire Meet the Media event Tom Whitwell, Assistant Editor of The Times with responsibility for online, saw no reason why the paywall would turn people away from the site. Tom suggested that peoples’ attitudes towards paying for content have changed drastically in recent years; people no longer have qualms about paying £9.99 for The Times iPad app or spending a cheeky 59p on the latest version of Angry Birds for their iPhone. What will attract paying readers to the site, according to Tom, is its wealth of specialised content and the feeling of being part of a closer relationship between the reader and writer. I particularly liked his comparison of paying for content to watching live music – would you rather see your favourite band for free at Wembley, or pay a small price to see them in a smaller, intimate venue?

But not everyone agrees with Tom. The Guardian recently published the result of two surveys into reader attitudes towards print and digital media, The first, from Ipsos, saw a meagre 11% of online adults stating they would choose to access their news digitally and only 3% saying they would opt for a monthly online subscription. An overwhelming 77% said they had no interest whatsoever in paying for news content online. The second survey, compiled by YouGov, had similar results with 83% of respondents saying they would refuse to pay for online content.

Quite contrasting views I’m sure you’ll agree, and as The Times is the first non-specialist UK newspaper to head behind the paywall, we have no real comparison to show who is right. I feel that there will need to be something pretty spectacular on the site to encourage me to pay – what about you?