05 Jul 10

The Times Paywall

By Godelieve O'Sullivan, Digital Group Head

On July 2nd News International made a distinct shift in online policy whereby online readers will be required to pay for access to www.thetimes.co.uk and www.thesundaytimes.co.uk in an epoch-defining attempt to monetise everyday news content. Access to the site's content will now be available for a charge of £1 for a day's access or £2 for a week's access.
As an incentive to sign up more customers, News International is offering access to both sites for a one-off charge of £1 for the first 30 days.

Times Online currently drives 2.6million UK unique users per month (Comscore May 2010) and this figure is likely to drop significantly (90%) with the new subscription model, making it a smaller site than the likes of Manchester Evening News or Daily Record.

This is part of a News International policy to become a paid for content provider across all platforms, and could well see bundles offered to consumers which will include i-pad/smart phone applications, The Sun and potentially Sky.

The hope from the Times is that the users they do retain will be much more involved in a more personalised Times - this should drive up dwell time, pages viewed and impact of advertising units. Equally important is that they will have registered data on their users and can therefore offer advertisers more highly targeted and behaviourally relevant opportunities. Clearly the sales policy will be to increase prices based on this higher quality, but the bottom line is that in order to work their content has to offer higher value to consumers than available elsewhere for free.

All publishers will be watching this development with keen interest and will utilise learnings to develop their own strategies. Whilst The Times have opted for this strategy, The Guardian have taken the polar opposite view. They argue that you cannot control online content, so instead have made their platform open source, offering content to approved partners to expand their reach in commercial agreements, whilst accepting content or technology in return.

MediaCom's position at the moment is a simple 'wait and see' stance. The Times have approached the market with a set price on share of voice which we believe will deliver poor cost efficiencies until proven otherwise. If The Times can subsequently deliver said proof that they have created a more engaged audience, relevant to our client’s brands, then there’s no reason why the policy couldn’t work for all parties.