Social Marketing & Digital Agency

Paying for Online Content - The Times take a big hit

After much umming and ahhing at TMMC Towers, we decided to pay our monthly subs in order to read The Times and The Sunday Times (£1 for the first month and £2 per week thereafter).

We came to this conclusion because, much as we love loads of the papers and mags we read (and we read tons of ‘em), we couldn’t bring ourselves to give up on some of our favourite journos like @IndiaKnight. All in all, we feel that The Times stable gives a really good breadth and depth of information, educates us and makes us laugh.

It would appear though that not so many of you agree – since the paywall was introduced a few weeks ago, the readership has halved and lots of people who could look at it online (like the people who subscribe to the paper copy) aren’t bothering to register.

Which brings up the whole debate of who pays?  As generators of content ourselves, we know how much knowledge and skill is required to produce top quality pieces, and The Times crew really don’t get much better.  Whilst we all have access to vast acres of stuff which appears relentlessly via the social media channels each day, a lot of it, is, well, not very good nor very interesting.

It is the big question of our digital age, and it’s going to roll and roll.  We look forward to hearing what Mr Murdoch and Son are going to do next.  Meanwhile we will continue to enjoy reading India on a Sunday morning.

Related posts:

1. To pay or not to pay…