Irish Times Blinks First

gizmo555

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

IRE60

Post already started

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

Stheno

Disappointed to see this

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.

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.

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?

Harry Palmr

Talking about it now on Pat Kenny.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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).

jmcc

flogen wrote: »

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?

A few of them. But the details are confidential. I also covered Pay TV and Conditional Access Systems. My current work covers global domain name registration statistics and web site utilisation (about 170 million domains tracked each month) (checking how approximately 2 million domain names are used and what kind of websites are on those domains every month).

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.

Netflix isn't the same kind of subscription model as a Pay TV service like Sky. All subscribers are unlikely to watch everything on the service and most will develop their own viewing niche. It is not a "one to many" broadcast service but rather a "many to many" service.

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

Fintan O'Toole might have the readership but the increasing use of clickbait merchants like Una Mullally is an indication of how bad things are for the IT.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Harry Palmr wrote: »

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).

Neither of them write for the IT. Myers was lost to the Independent in a dreadful mistake by Geraldine Kennedy. Waters ended up in the Indo too. They were two commentators that the IT should not have lost as they brought in readers.

Regards...jmcc

hmmm

I think they've got the price point right for what they're offering. I'd have preferred 10 euros, but I suppose the intention with 12 is to creep it up to 15 to 20 over the next few years.

Still, for the last quality Irish broadsheet I'm happy to pay 12 - if only to try and help it survive. I think I'm like most people these days who rarely sit down to read a newspaper end to end, and who dip in to articles from multiple sources, so the idea of paying 50 quid a month for a full subscription makes no sense - but 12, yeah, good job IT I hope it works.

jmcc

hmmm wrote: »

Still, for the last quality Irish broadsheet I'm happy to pay 12 - if only to try and help it survive.

It is a buyer's market where most of the content is free. That's what the IT is up against. And the most powerful argument for any prospective subscriber is this: It is the IT's job to provide me with information. It is not my job to help the IT survive.

The loyal reader is quickly becoming a thing of the past. The IT has depended on it for the last twenty years or so (since the advent of the internet as a consumer service). Unfortunately it hasn't really advanced much in that twenty years.

Regards...jmcc

hmmm

jmcc wrote: »

It is not my job to help the IT survive.

I know, I know, but the reality is that the only way we are going to get quality journalism in the future is if we pay for it. There are lot of nicely packaged, but parasitical, online news sites which lift news from the "quality" newspapers and which do very well out of this, but they add nothing original themselves other than the occasional comment article.

jmcc

hmmm wrote: »

I know, I know, but the reality is that the only way we are going to get quality journalism in the future is if we pay for it. There are lot of nicely packaged, but parasitical, online news sites which lift news from the "quality" newspapers and which do very well out of this, but they add nothing original themselves other than the occasional comment article.

Unfortunately. But the problem with the Irish Times is that there has been a fragmentation of specialisations on the web and this means that people can get better specialist coverage (economic, technology etc) elsewhere. The Irish Times is still pushing the same clueless commentators and churnos as being better than others when they are clearly not. Good journalism is expensive and what the Irish Times did in the last twenty years was to shift to commentary because it was cheaper. And that strategy is really hitting its circulation figures now because it is not sure whether it is a magazine (mainly analysis and commentary) or a newspaper (mainly news coverage with minimal editorials/op-eds). On those figures, the IT will continue to lose readers and may be below 50K (bulks excluded) by the end of the year.

Regards...jmcc

hmmm

jmcc wrote: »

Unfortunately. But the problem with the Irish Times is that there has been a fragmentation of specialisations on the web and this means that people can get better specialist coverage (economic, technology etc) elsewhere.

True - I've never met anyone who reads the technology sections of the IT. Any of the bits I've looked at I've usually either read before if they were any good, out of date or written for an audience of 5 year olds.

I imagine though that sort of content is relatively cheap, and pads out the paper - with the expensive stuff being supporting the news journalists and the foreign desks in particular. There is no replacement for this if the newspaper dies (at least not unless we want to read nothing but Robert Fisk, who appears to be the only foreign correspondant in the Middle East if you believe the IT).

gizmo555

hmmm wrote: »

. . . unless we want to read nothing but Robert Fisk, who appears to be the only foreign correspondant in the Middle East if you believe the IT).

The IT doesn't publish Fisk's writing, hasn't done for years.

Loafing Oaf

gizmo555 wrote: »

The IT doesn't publish Fisk's writing, hasn't done for years.

Presume he/she means the Indo...

expectationlost

Harry Palmr wrote: »

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!)

Irish news?

expectationlost

everything I read on this suggest that paying subscribers will face more advertising and more scrutiny of their personal information then non-subscribers, does that not seems strange? I guess you have to pay more then 2 quid a day/e12 a week to get no advertising.

Polo_Mint

Pay from today

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/742661/339969.JPG

IRE60

Only €1 for the first month - as JMCC - the first payment is probably the hardest! so maybe its a way to ease people in?

C

Red Alert

It appears that Private Browsing mode solves the problem. I gather there are some automated cookie-clearing plugins that can also do this..

Calhoun

Wont be paying for this, i can understand paying for the e-reader version of the full paper but as far as breaking news goes the IT website is normally a day or more behind depending on the subject matter.

wally79

reach 10 views, clear cookies, start again

expectationlost

David Cochrane @davidcochrane
@PriorClaire Hi Claire, links from social do count towards meter, but links from social still accessible after you've reached 10 articles.

oh

RayM

I subscribed. €12 per month (€1 for the first month) is decent value - especially with the digital archive thrown in too.

wally79

RayM wrote: »

I subscribed. €12 per month (€1 for the first month) is decent value - especially with the digital archive thrown in too.

If they included the crosswords I would pay.

RayM

wally79 wrote: »

If they included the crosswords I would pay.

They do - Simplex and (if you're much cleverer than me) Crosaire.