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Irish Times Blinks First

  • 17-02-2015 9:59am
    #1
    gizmo555
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,948 ✭✭✭


    Could you be arsed paying for the likes of Úna Mullaly or Stephen Collins? Not me. This is, I think, the IT's 2nd attempt to charge for its online edition. Can't see it working this time either.

    The Irish Times is introducing subscription packages for its digital content from Monday, February 23rd. It will become the first national daily newspaper in Ireland to introduce a metered subscription for its digital content.

    Kevin O’Sullivan, the editor of The Irish Times, said the move will “support future investment in journalism” across both print and digital.

    The subscriptions are being introduced because the company does not believe it can sustain its online journalism through advertising income alone.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/the-irish-times-to-introduce-digital-subscriptions-next-week-1.2106220


«134

Comments

  • #2
    IRE60
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,882 ✭✭✭IRE60


    Post already started

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057382231


  • #3
    IRE60
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,882 ✭✭✭IRE60


    At €16 PM for the decent package, it represents a deep discount on the €49.20 they look for for the print edition p.m. (4 week M-S month 28 days).

    Now, it will be interesting to see what follows. Will it work?, Who'll go next and who's, if any, is ready to follow?
    What will be the reaction from commercial quarters advertising on the IT website at the moment?


  • #4
    Tristram
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,591 ✭✭✭Tristram


    Surprised to see this move announced. Of all the places I have gone/go for online news the quality of what the IT offers is the least of which I would expect or be willing to pay for.


  • #5
    daUbiq
    Registered Users Posts: 420 ✭✭daUbiq


    It's a government propaganda rag anyway... who cares?

    See the new ad on TV - the catchphrase is "you are what you read"!! So, if I read the Irish Times, I'm what?


  • #6
    gizmo555
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,948 ✭✭✭gizmo555


    IRE60 wrote: »
    At €16 PM for the decent package, it represents a deep discount on the €49.20 they look for for the print edition p.m. (4 week M-S month 28 days).

    Yes, it does, if that's the alternative. I would personally buy the print version of the IT at most once a month.

    Your use of the word "package" hits the nail on the head. Would I pay for €16 a month for the current IT package? Not a chance.


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  • #7
    Stheno
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 51,688 Mod ✭✭✭✭Stheno


    Disappointed to see this


  • #8
    delos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 404 ✭✭delos


    I pay just under €6 per month for a subscription to the Glasgow Herald which is a quality broadsheet. €16 a month seems a bit steep to me as I'd imagine the circulation of the IT plus the diaspora would be a bit bigger than the Herald.


  • #9
    Harry Palmr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    This'll kill the IT online quickly enough esp if the Indo stays free to read. Not to mention the guardian who may see a chance to deepen coverage of Ireland if the traffic picks up from here.

    edit - I see that some syndicated stuff will remain free to read.


  • #10
    IRE60
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,882 ✭✭✭IRE60


    Stheno wrote: »
    Disappointed to see this
    Disappointed? One what grounds can I ask- the fact it's not free any more?

    Harry Palmr wrote: »
    This'll kill the IT online quickly enough esp if the Indo stays free to read. Not to mention the guardian who may see a chance to deepen coverage of Ireland if the traffic picks up from here.

    To quote Hamlet: 'Aye, there's the rub'.

    I think it could pan out in many ways: The Sun went from 3m uniques per-day to 70k when they introduced the pay wall - to thats the online advertising gone.

    It will only work if the subscription revs outweigh (substantially I'd argue) the lost online advertising revenue.

    The Indo's traffic will spike on Monday and for the rest of the week. This will make them think.. and begin to rub themselves, collectively.

    "look at all that lovely traffic....." they will mutter - they may add 50% to their current ad revenue next week and will that make them think again on the back of the good fortune/ill wind and even is that enough?


  • #11
    Harry Palmr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    Talking about it now on Pat Kenny.


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  • #12
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    IRE60 wrote: »
    I think it could pan out in many ways: The Sun went from 3m uniques per-day to 70k when they introduced the pay wall - to thats the online advertising gone.

    The Sun was a hard paywall while the IT's is metered - I can't see them suffering a similar drop off in traffic.

    They probably will lose readership all the same - but thankfully for them one new subscriber is worth a countless number of free 'eyeballs' on its banner ads (which they'll still be getting a lot of due to the metering).

    Overall I think the IT have been quite generous in their offering... maybe even too generous.

    10 free views per device per week, with views coming via Google or social media not counted towards that, means that most casual readers won't even notice. (And that's before you get into the fact that a leaky paywall like this will probably be easy to circumvent).

    I'd argue that if you find yourself reading more than 40+ IT articles a month, €12 isn't an entirely unreasonable price to pay. If you think it is, then you're not the kind of valuable audience member a media organisation would mourn the loss of.


  • #13
    RayM
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,973 ✭✭✭RayM


    It's not much of a paywall. Articles accessed through Google, Twitter or Facebook will be free, so it won't affect the popularity of 'clickbait' opinion columns. They're really only charging people who want to 'browse' the website, which makes sense.

    The basic package (€12 per month) gives you full access to the Irish Times Archive (previously €395 per year as a standalone package). All in all, pretty good value.


  • #14
    Raspberry Fileds
    Closed Accounts Posts: 294 ✭✭Raspberry Fileds


    It's true that this initial version of the paywall is very flexible, but I would be very surprised if it's equally so in a year or two's time. Given that it could be circumnavigated by simply searching in Google for an article you see on the website, I think the motivations are two-fold: to pick up easy cash from wealthy readers who have transitioned to online and so as to have a baseline from which to start increasing restrictions.


  • #15
    IRE60
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,882 ✭✭✭IRE60


    Raspberry Fileds wrote: »
    It's true that this initial version of the paywall is very flexible, but I would be very surprised if it's equally so in a year or two's time. Given that it could be circumnavigated by simply searching in Google for an article you see on the website, I think the motivations are two-fold: to pick up easy cash from wealthy readers who have transitioned to online and so as to have a baseline from which to start increasing restrictions.

    On first reading I, with a commercial head on, understood that as of Monday all articles, from Monday's edition on, would be behind a paywall.

    Any article currently in the wild via search engines or f/book would still be accessible?

    Otherwise its a complete joke. If they got, say, 15,000 subscribers and 10% of them posted an article a day, some news, some business, some sport etc - then they would have a serious amount of articles accessible to non-subscribers.

    I could see a cabal/ group collusion by subscribers to set up a f/book page where they would post articles which we could all access :eek:

    It needs clarification


  • #16
    Tristram
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,591 ✭✭✭Tristram


    IRE60 wrote: »
    I could see a cabal/ group collusion by subscribers to set up a f/book page where they would post articles which we could all access :eek:

    A group that wouldn't need many members to share all worth sharing.


  • #17
    Raspberry Fileds
    Closed Accounts Posts: 294 ✭✭Raspberry Fileds


    Not quite sure how it is currently, but don't articles after a certain time period fall into the archive and therefore become inaccessible to non-subscribers? So it would only be a small - and ever decreasing - cache of articles.

    While what you say about a potential FB page is definitely a loop-hole, it's not probable that an active one would sprout up and even less likely that it would take more than a negligible proportion of potential subscribers, I think.


  • #18
    elperello
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,558 ✭✭✭✭elperello


    I wonder where does this leave the regular buyer of the paper edition?

    Will they be able to avail of some online access in return for their loyalty in buying the paper 6 days a week?


  • #19
    IRE60
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,882 ✭✭✭IRE60


    elperello wrote: »
    I wonder where does this leave the regular buyer of the paper edition?

    Will they be able to avail of some online access in return for their loyalty in buying the paper 6 days a week?

    There is a bundled package of print home delivery and digital for 50 a month. The indo take on it is fairly standard and strikes me they were not aware of the immimant release of the paywall
    http://www.independent.ie/business/media/irish-times-to-introduce-paywall-next-week-costing-up-to-50-a-month-30998124.html


  • #20
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭icdg


    The €50 package is very good value if you're a religious Irish Times reader - twenty weekday editions at €2 each and four weekend editions at €2.30 each already come to €49.20 before you factor in the free delivery and access to the online edition and archive.

    I just don't know if such an easily circumventable paywall will actually work. Or a paywall in general, given that this is at least the second time they've tried it. It's a bit of "chicken and egg" - as long as their rivals remain free, they risk losing readers to those rivals, but if no one succeeds at it no one else will try it.


  • #21
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    Raspberry Fileds wrote: »
    It's true that this initial version of the paywall is very flexible, but I would be very surprised if it's equally so in a year or two's time.

    I wouldn't be surprised to see that - the NYT has slowly tightened its free access since it first introduced its metered paywall.
    IRE60 wrote: »
    On first reading I, with a commercial head on, understood that as of Monday all articles, from Monday's edition on, would be behind a paywall.

    Any article currently in the wild via search engines or f/book would still be accessible?

    Otherwise its a complete joke. If they got, say, 15,000 subscribers and 10% of them posted an article a day, some news, some business, some sport etc - then they would have a serious amount of articles accessible to non-subscribers.

    I could see a cabal/ group collusion by subscribers to set up a f/book page where they would post articles which we could all access :eek:

    It needs clarification

    No - I think it's an ongoing thing, so Monday's articles will still be free... assuming you've got room left in your allowance or you find it from FB, Twitter or Google etc.

    Of course that 'leaky' feature opens the possibility for abuse... but the hope is that enough users find the (small bit of) messing around involved to be more hassle than paying the subscription fee.

    Realistically, newspapers only need a small percentage of their current audience to cough up for a paywall like this to be worthwhile.


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  • #22
    Loafing Oaf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,793 ✭✭✭✭Loafing Oaf


    flogen wrote: »
    10 free views per device per week, with views coming via Google or social media not counted towards that, means that most casual readers won't even notice.

    Yeah I check the site a couple of times a day but it would be no big sacrifice to ration my actual reading to ten articles a month.

    Agree with those who said it's a generous offer but still can't see many people signing up. Still IT have to do something to monetise digital or they'll be dead in five years.


  • #23
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    Loafing Oaf wrote: »
    Yeah I check the site a couple of times a day but it would be no big sacrifice to ration my actual reading to ten articles a month.

    Agree with those who said it's a generous offer but still can't see many people signing up. Still IT have to do something to monetise digital or they'll be dead in five years.

    A piece in the IT today shows that they expect the minority of readers to cough up - they also expect the paywall to push some viewers to other sites.

    Some international research (cited here) suggests that only 0.5% of a website's audience become subscribers. That sounds low, but the IT would probably be delighted with that result.

    Depending on which figure you believe from the two pieces linked above, that would mean 27,000-30,500 subscribers... if they all went with the €12 option that's €3.9m-€4.4m in new revenue after a year. To put that in context, they were claiming to be on track for €8m in total digital revenue last year, when they were giving everything (bar the 'epaper' version) away for free.


  • #24
    glued
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,446 ✭✭✭glued


    I can't see how this move will benefit the IT. It's not like it's the FT where they dominate the market. 16 euro a month isn't really a whole lot but I can't imagine that many users will cough up that amount. Online readers will just go elsewhere.

    It should be a lot cheaper to start off with to ease the whole process in. Let's say one euro per month. Then it should gradually increase and as people see the service improving they may be happy to pay a higher price but now you're expecring people to pay for something that was free.

    Some serious thinking outside the box will lead to a winner in this market but I cant see the IT being victorious.


  • #25
    IRE60
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,882 ✭✭✭IRE60


    Its all very interesting, now that a few numbers have been thrown out there by the two articles flogen posted.

    Taking Liam Kavanagh first; he notes that the company gets 12.5% of its revenue from digital and it had 6.1 uniques in January.

    Therefore their annualised digital revenue would be in the parish of €10.5 pa currently. Now, that's primarily made up of agency revenue which he can kiss goodbye to (and maybe he's glad to!)

    If the article siting The Nieman Foundation stands true for them on the .05% translation to subscription, then the 6.1m uniques will translate into 30,500 subscribers annually. Allow me the unreal world of economic speculation - I'm assuming no churn and it's a simple €16 per month subscription.

    That would yield them €27.3m pa in digital subscription revenue!

    It's back of a cigarette packet stuff, but it looks ok on those numbers.


  • #26
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    glued wrote: »
    I can't see how this move will benefit the IT. It's not like it's the FT where they dominate the market. 16 euro a month isn't really a whole lot but I can't imagine that many users will cough up that amount. Online readers will just go elsewhere.

    It should be a lot cheaper to start off with to ease the whole process in. Let's say one euro per month. Then it should gradually increase and as people see the service improving they may be happy to pay a higher price but now you're expecring people to pay for something that was free.

    Some serious thinking outside the box will lead to a winner in this market but I cant see the IT being victorious.

    The real problem for online services is getting the initial sign-up... As the saying goes, the gulf between free and 1c is far greater than the gulf between 1c and €1.

    Obviously a lower price would probably make it more attractive but there's a law of diminishing returns in terms of lost margain vs increased subscriptions - they would also want to avoid a situation where they draw people in at a certain price only to alienate them by jacking that up a few months (or even a year or two) later


  • #27
    jmcc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,452 ✭✭✭jmcc


    flogen wrote: »
    The real problem for online services is getting the initial sign-up...
    It might seem that way to someone who has never run a subscription service but the real battle is over renewals. The first year always has a novelty effect in that people will be testing the system but the crunch is when the first year subscribers have to renew. The success, or otherwise, of the IT's venture won't be known until the middle of 2016. This is because there's an initial "land rush" of subscriptions as the paywall is introduced followed by a slower rate of subscriptions until it reaches the "normal" rate of new subscriptions. If subscription levels are poor then the IT will be forced to introduce discounted renewal fees to hang on to existing subscribers. The one mistake that the IT may make is a short term or single issue subscription. This probably makes sense to the class of numpty "consultants" that seems to advise companies (without said numpties ever having had any experience in running subscription services) but it is quite lethal for subscriptions as the product moves from being an essential, in the mind of a consumer, to being one that can be bought as needed. If that perception takes hold then it is game-over for the IT's paywall venture.

    Regards...jmcc


  • #28
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    jmcc wrote: »
    It might seem that way to someone who has never run a subscription service but the real battle is over renewals. The first year always has a novelty effect in that people will be testing the system but the crunch is when the first year subscribers have to renew.

    I'm not sure how applicable that will be in this instance.

    By the looks of things the IT will be charging on a monthly basis and - if it follows any modern digital subscription model, as opposed to the old-fashioned print subscription model - it will be automatically charged until the customer says otherwise.

    Obviously you'll still get plenty of cancellations - and in today's IT piece Kavanagh talks about trying to manage churn - but it's a different animal to having to prompt people to renew on an annual basis.

    It's apples and oranges to a degree, but I'd reckon there's a decent chunk of Netflix subscribers who hardly touch the service, but don't really notice the €7+ monthly fee coming out of their account regardless.

    In terms of the initial sign-up - I think that curiosity will be somewhat subdued by the fact that this is a leaky paywall rather than a hard one - it's not like those holding off will miss out on what's going on at IT.com... time and again, though, companies face the struggle of getting customers to part with their CC details in the first place, after which it's much easier to convince them to spend.


  • #29
    jmcc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,452 ✭✭✭jmcc


    flogen wrote: »
    I'm not sure how applicable that will be in this instance.
    It is a constant in all subscription based systems. Remember that most of the people commenting on this have no background in such systems and have never run one. (Much like how many of the IT's supposed specialist journalists are crayon jockeys rather than people with specialist knowledge or backgrounds.) It is a totally different animal to ordinary newspaper sales.
    By the looks of things the IT will be charging on a monthly basis and - if it follows any modern digital subscription model, as opposed to the old-fashioned print subscription model - it will be automatically charged until the customer says otherwise.
    The trick, for any subscription based service, is to get the subscriber to subscribe for the longest period possible.
    Obviously you'll still get plenty of cancellations - and in today's IT piece Kavanagh talks about trying to manage churn - but it's a different animal to having to prompt people to renew on an annual basis.
    I suppose that if you go back to the dawn of the IT's previous efforts, you'll see similar articles on their brave new future.
    It's apples and oranges to a degree, but I'd reckon there's a decent chunk of Netflix subscribers who hardly touch the service, but don't really notice the €7+ monthly fee coming out of their account regardless.
    No. I think that services like Netflix have moved watching TV from being a largely broadcast synchronous model to an asynchronous model where the viewer has much more control over consumption (far beyond video recorders and DVRs). It has moved from a push model (where the broadcaster broadcasts the programming) to a pull model (where the subscriber selects what they want to watch when they want to watch it.).

    The TV channels have responded to that with their own hybrid pull model where they make programming available on their digital player services. Now the problem for newspapers is that this is anathema to their model which depends on the entire newspaper (print) being sold for a fixed fee so that the reader effectively pays everything in the edition. With a digital model, the subscriber may only end up reading the articles that they want to read rather than methodically pouring over the newspaper during their coffee break. Thus the danger is that sooner or later, the subscriber cops on to the fact that what's original is not good and what's good is not original. They could get much of the same material for free elsewhere. And when that realisation hits, non-renewal and abandonment rates rocket.
    In terms of the initial sign-up - I think that curiosity will be somewhat subdued by the fact that this is a leaky paywall rather than a hard one - it's not like those holding off will miss out on what's going on at IT.com... time and again, though, companies face the struggle of getting customers to part with their CC details in the first place, after which it's much easier to convince them to spend.
    It may end up cannibalising its archive service to entice people to subscribe.

    Regards...jmcc


  • #30
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    jmcc wrote: »
    It is a constant in all subscription based systems. Remember that most of the people commenting on this have no background in such systems and have never run one. (Much like how many of the IT's supposed specialist journalists are crayon jockeys rather than people with specialist knowledge or backgrounds.) It is a totally different animal to ordinary newspaper sales.

    I'm guessing you have had experience running a subscription service based on what you've said here - out of curiosity, could you give some details on how it was structured (cost, duration of subscription etc) and how it fared?
    No. I think that services like Netflix have moved watching TV from being a largely broadcast synchronous model to an asynchronous model where the viewer has much more control over consumption (far beyond video recorders and DVRs). It has moved from a push model (where the broadcaster broadcasts the programming) to a pull model (where the subscriber selects what they want to watch when they want to watch it.).

    The TV channels have responded to that with their own hybrid pull model where they make programming available on their digital player services.

    I referenced Netflix as an example of a subscription service that has priced itself in a way that people often aren't bothered to cancel even if they're not getting their money's worth out of it.

    It's not a phenomenon that's confined to digital either (nor is it something any company should bet the farm on either)
    Thus the danger is that sooner or later, the subscriber cops on to the fact that what's original is not good and what's good is not original. They could get much of the same material for free elsewhere. And when that realisation hits, renewal and abandonment rates rocket.

    It will certainly be a problem for the IT if they can't offer readers anything beyond what they already get for free elsewhere - the same reason why some newspapers have opted to only put their paywall around their "unique" features, like a certain columnist etc


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  • #31
    Harry Palmr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    I don't read Irish paper websites, they have never come close to what the Guardian can offer (or the Mail at the other end!) so I don't know if there is anything really worth paying for. Can they do investigative depth on a regular basis which isn't being done (maybe better) elsewhere? Would anyone pay to read the thoughts of a John Waters or Kevin Myers every week? (I have no idea if they still write for the IT).


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