The Times website to start charging £1/day from June

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8588432.stm

by AndrewDucker • 16 years ago

10 23 16 years ago

news.bbc.co.uk

benologist3• 16 years ago

Headline's kind of sensationalist .... it's 1 pound per day or 2 pounds per week which is much more reasonable. It seems kind of high although the real question is if people are willing to pay anything, the right price can be established after they find that out.

revorad• 16 years ago

That's hardly sensationalist. The key point is that they are charging. Would you pay the £2 per week?

benologist3• 16 years ago

Nope (I get my news from other sites), but like I said in my comment the first step is to see if people will pay anything at all, then they can find the right price. It's a lot easier to reduce the price then raise it. My guess is they'll end up doing monthly for a few pounds in the long run.

There is a small number of sites I would pay to have access to if I had to.

inovica2• 16 years ago

I would. Its a good paper

ErrantX• 16 years ago

Yes, when I get an iPad (or other pad) I probably will

axod2• 16 years ago

>£0 is unreasonable. I doubt they'll get many subscribers at all.

benologist3• 16 years ago

Maybe they won't. Maybe they will although I expect the price will end up being lower for longer.

I don't think > 0 is arbitrarily unreasonable though.

inovica2• 16 years ago

I will subscribe. Especially if I can have it on an iPad when its out.

timthorn2• 16 years ago

There's a finite supply of quality general news websites, especially UK local. The newspaper market in the UK is much healthier than in the US, and each of the papers has a defined market position. If I want to read about a politics story for example, I'll check out the Telegraph and the Guardian for their distinct perspectives. For a business story I'll go to the Financial Times, and for international news I read the Times. However, there is also a core readership that tends to be very loyal to their paper.

Charging for access to the Times website may cause a loss of page views, but it may also encourage more of the papers to charge (it isn't the first) - which I think on balance is a good thing.

hga• 16 years ago

I won't subscribe; I might at, say, something less than 10 US cents per article because I just don't read the Times that much, only from links from other sites.

I'd pay good money to read the Torygraph (Telegraph), which I've enjoyed for something more than a decade (although in all fairness the news coming out of the U.K. as of late is so depressing that's iffy right now, even balanced by Matt).

I'm sure others would be happy to pay for the Guardian; heck, I'm sure some people's life would be incomplete without their daily dose of Page 3 girls in The Sun ^_^.

And if I was in a different phase in my life I'd be subscribing to the Financial Times and The Economist. (In the '80s I subscribed to the latter and The Wall Street Journal).

But I just don't see the Times as offering sufficiently distinct value to prompt me to shell out much money for what they're offering.

aw3c22• 16 years ago

Andrew, please not edit headlines unless necessary. This one should be "Times and Sunday Times websites to charge from June". Yours is inaccurate as benologist already mentioned. See http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

timthorn2• 16 years ago

Especially since The Times already costs £1/day.

lovskogen• 16 years ago

Start charging £1 without any changes to the quality of the site?

duarte2• 16 years ago

they are launching two new websites (separate for the times, and the sunday times) in may

babyboy808• 16 years ago

There pricing is using some nice psychology and "forcing" people to subscribe for the £2 per week, People see the £1 per day and say oh wait, I can get a whole week for just another quid.

duarte2• 16 years ago

This is ridiculous. I get the International Herald Tribune delivered to my door in London for £0.53 a day. Same goes for the guardian, with subscriptions under a pound a day. Yes, people will pay for convenience, but this is not a competitive offer at all!

aw3c22• 16 years ago

The headline is misleading. You can get a week subscription for £2.

ElliotH• 16 years ago

This is incredibly misjudged. The Times, while an excellent news paper wouldn't be anybody's primary choice as a news source. I suspect that the vast majority of people who are willing to pay for read it would only pay to read it on paper.

tgandrews• 16 years ago

It's not like news is hard to come by on the internet. With the cost of switching to another site at effectively 0 there is no barrier to leaving.

ramchip• 16 years ago

NI chief executive Rebekah Brooks said it was "a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition".

And I suppose Windows 7 is "a crucial step towards making the business of desktop computers an economically exciting proposition". Marketing blurb never fails to impress me with its sheer lack of logic...

jdietrich• 16 years ago

Economics 101 - people will simply substitute a cheaper equivalent good. For the vast majority of their readers, The Times isn't doing anything unique. I'm sure they will have a small number of readers who are just loyal to the paper, some who are fans of a particular columnist, but for most people it just isn't £104 a year better than the Telegraph or the Independent.

I think Murdoch is mistaken to believe that newspaper buyers are paying for content - I believe that they are paying for access. If I'm waiting for a train, I am happy to pay £1 to have something to read. The problem for the newspapers is that now I carry a smartphone with a huge backlog of RSS feeds - content far more specific and relevant to me than any daily paper.

Personally, I think the only chance they have is to establish a news cartel, which I believe is explanation enough for Murdoch's mission to kill off the BBC.

harrybr• 16 years ago

Other ailing newspaper sites must be happy about this. All they need to do is nothing (stay free) and they'll get a massive influx of visitors who are gravitating to the next best free sources. If they're small and lean, that might be all they need to sustain them.

The Times website to start charging £1/day from June

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