The Times becomes a subscription website

Gangster said:
Definatley not, anything to make money - offer something free to hook customers in (tv advert lol) then start charging, sorry their scheme hasn't worked for me!
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???

They have always said that they will be charging and the fees were published on the site during the registration period.

And what's wrong with trying to make money from your journalism?
 
I don't think it's fair to compare BBC news with that of newspapers. Generally speaking, BBC gives a rough outline of the stories but doesn't provide true indepth analysis a lot of the time.
Newspapers give far more depth to a story and bring in various different sources. Second to this, many times a newspaper article is more enjoyable to read (though this depends on you and the relationship you have with the author more so) whereas the BBC is more clinical and matter-of-factly.

None of these are bad things, but they are different and aim to be.

We must remember the BBC news is not 'free', as it is paid for through our licence.

I for one won't be subscribing to the Times, but that's because it isn't a paper I'd chose to read. Though I do suspect more papers are going to follow suit and perhaps if the Telegraph goes down this root I may cough up if the price is fair.

Didn't Murdoch state, at some point, that his entire empire would be going down this route eventually?
 
If paying for a newspaper means increasing their journalistic standards I am all for it. Unfortunately what we are seeing here is simply a charging mechanism while the product on offer remains the same (i.e. pay for something you used to get for free). Well that won't work very well I guess.

The fact that you pay for the newspaper print is irrelevant as it has different costs compared to the digital version.

If they were smarter they should have thrown in extras with the online charging scheme (i.e. analysis reports, special reports and what not - see the Economist's website model for example).

Eitherway I would not pay for 'the times' as I do not find it to my taste, but those who might be tempted would be tempted even more with a smarter business model.
 
Ice Rich said:
Can anyone expand on this please.
What exactly are you getting over the BBC viewers?
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Better reporting, better journalism, better articles, better partner services.

I get the print paper delivered so get free subscription to this, but would pay anyway.
 
kgi said:
If they were smarter they should have thrown in extras with the online charging scheme (i.e. analysis reports, special reports and what not - see the Economist's website model for example).
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Additional services are coming, it's an Agile development model; you release what you can as soon as its available and continually refine and add new services.

This is only a stepping stone to the 'more intelligent' model.

kgi said:
Well that won't work very well I guess.
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Current indicators are that it will work better than giving it away for free.
 
[DOD]Asprilla;16770291 said:
???

They have always said that they will be charging and the fees were published on the site during the registration period.

And what's wrong with trying to make money from your journalism?
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Other websites offer it for free, so why should I pay for a service I can get elsewhere free of charge?

They make enough money through the adverts therefore could offer it for free (like they used to) but they're becoming greedy and want to make more money. I hope this goes backward for them, teach them a lesson!
 
Gangster said:
They make enough money through the adverts therefore could offer it for free (like they used to) but they're becoming greedy and want to make more money. I hope this goes backward for them, teach them a lesson!
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No they don't. Same as almost every news website, they lose money by relying only on advertising.

The Times and Sunday Times lose quater of a million a week. The Guardian (who will defend the free model to the death) lost £176million last year (including some restructuring charges).

Yeah, screw them for actually trying to make a profit for a change.
 
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Gangster said:
Other websites offer it for free, so why should I pay for a service I can get elsewhere free of charge?
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The question isn't "why should", it's "do I want too". In your case, obviously you don't, so don't! Thats how subscriptions work.

A more accurate question is why should The Times offer you free news content?

They make enough money through the adverts
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No, no they don't,
 
Plenty more newsites in the world.

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Why do we need these massive news corps anyway? They don't make the news, they merely report on it!

I foresee I will get my news from blogs, random websites, YouTube, facebook etc etc over the next decade.

With the internet we simply don't need the old and tired newspaper companies.
 
Blogs, facebook and youtube are all well and good but they don't really report news and they don't have any bredth or depth. They also don't have a consistent editorial line you can use as a frame of reference or much in the way of fact checking.

We are seeing the death of proper investgative journalism because it's expensive and people used to the internet and tabloid journalism won't pay. The Sunday Times disbanded it's Insight investigation team in 2005 saving an estimated £300,000 a year. This is the team that revelealed that Isreal had nuclear weapons and a large number of other scoops.

Without proper journalism stories like that either won't come to light, or they will be relagated to the conspiracy files.

Smit said:
It's free for me and anyone else around the world that visits the website. It does contain adverts though :(
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It's a similar site, but it's not the same.
 
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If ITV and Channel 4 can run TV stations by adds alone then these idiots should be able to run a paper.

I really hope it fails anyway, I don't want the rest of the papers doing this too.
 
starfighter said:
If ITV and Channel 4 can run TV stations by adds alone then these idiots should be able to run a paper.

I really hope it fails anyway, I don't want the rest of the papers doing this too.
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Except that ITV have also been making huge losses and C4 is also supported by a slice of the licence fee.

People want their cake and to eat it; good content for free with no (or unobtrusive) ads. Can no-one see any problems with this model?
 
[DOD]Asprilla;16770979 said:
Except that ITV have also been making huge losses and C4 is also supported by a slice of the licence fee.

People want their cake and to eat it; good content for free with no (or unobtrusive) ads. Can no-one see any problems with this model?
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I agree something has to change, I will personally find media outlets that can operate on advertising alone.

However I don't spend much on newspapers anyway, but the kind of person that does probably wouldn't be that adverse to paying a subscription, however they might be annoyed about paying twice, once for the hard copy and once for the sub. Until you don't look like a total **** for pulling out your Kindle et al on the train it isn't going to work very well either.
 
If you subscribe to the newspaper then you don't pay for the site. Also, I'm sure all those iPad purchsers would disagree with you about looking a ****.
 
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As long as BBC News is still free (yes, I'm aware it's funded from the TV licence) I won't be paying any subscriptions for my news. It will be interesting to see if The Times does much better from making this move.
 
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