Tuesday 20 July 10:44 GMT
Image: Guardian.co.uk
The Times website has lost 66% of its readership following the introduction of mandatory registration and a paywall. The decline, though massive, is smaller than industry predictions.
Visitors to The Times' website are redirected to the paywall.
The Times newspaper's website has lost 66% of its readers following the introduction of mandatory registration and a paywall, according to new figures by website traffic monitor Experian Hitwise. The figures are better than expected: other newspapers that introduced paywalls experienced up to 90% declines in readership.
The Times began charging visitors £1 per day or £2 weekly on July 2nd, following owner Rubert Murdoch's decision to end free access to online content last year. His decision is controversial: most online publishers including The Guardian believe online newspapers can make profits using advertising revenues – without charging people.
Experian Hitwise figures show though that The Times website performed better than expected. In the week following the paywall's introduction, readership fell to only 33% pre-paywall levels: other news sites that implemented paywalls, such as Long Island's Newsday, encountered 90% readership drops. To this extent The Times experiment can be considered successful.
Interestingly, the Experian figures reveal readership fell by only 8% in the week following the paywall's introduction. Instead, the majority of readers – 58% - stop reading when The Times introduced mandatory registration 1 month before the paywall. This two-tiered approach suggests The Times intended to weed out casual readers before charging for content.
However, the Experian Hitwise statistics do not reveal whether The Times' paying readership can make the newspaper's website profitable. This information is crucial: it determines whether The Times' experiment has succeeded and, for the newspaper industry, whether online paywalls can be feasible. Hence final judgement of the paywall ought be suspended until The Times reveals its online revenues.
Sources
Anonymous, 'Paywall Leads To Two-Thirds Drop In Times Online Readership,' TheFrontline.v3.co.uk, 18 July 2010.
David Teather, 'New Paywall Costs The Times 66% Of Its Online Readership,' Guardian.co.uk, 18 July 2010.
Greybeard, 'The Times They Are A-Changing; Paywall Sees Two Thirds Drop In Web Traffic,' Unthinkable.biz, 19 July 2010.
Matthew Ingram, 'Rubert's Paywall Is Meant To Keep People In, Not Out,' Gigaom.com, 19 July 2010.
Image: Guardian.co.uk
The Times website has lost 66% of its readership following the introduction of mandatory registration and a paywall. The decline, though massive, is smaller than industry predictions.
Visitors to The Times' website are redirected to the paywall.The Times newspaper's website has lost 66% of its readers following the introduction of mandatory registration and a paywall, according to new figures by website traffic monitor Experian Hitwise. The figures are better than expected: other newspapers that introduced paywalls experienced up to 90% declines in readership.
The Times began charging visitors £1 per day or £2 weekly on July 2nd, following owner Rubert Murdoch's decision to end free access to online content last year. His decision is controversial: most online publishers including The Guardian believe online newspapers can make profits using advertising revenues – without charging people.
Experian Hitwise figures show though that The Times website performed better than expected. In the week following the paywall's introduction, readership fell to only 33% pre-paywall levels: other news sites that implemented paywalls, such as Long Island's Newsday, encountered 90% readership drops. To this extent The Times experiment can be considered successful.
Interestingly, the Experian figures reveal readership fell by only 8% in the week following the paywall's introduction. Instead, the majority of readers – 58% - stop reading when The Times introduced mandatory registration 1 month before the paywall. This two-tiered approach suggests The Times intended to weed out casual readers before charging for content.
However, the Experian Hitwise statistics do not reveal whether The Times' paying readership can make the newspaper's website profitable. This information is crucial: it determines whether The Times' experiment has succeeded and, for the newspaper industry, whether online paywalls can be feasible. Hence final judgement of the paywall ought be suspended until The Times reveals its online revenues.
Sources
Anonymous, 'Paywall Leads To Two-Thirds Drop In Times Online Readership,' TheFrontline.v3.co.uk, 18 July 2010.
David Teather, 'New Paywall Costs The Times 66% Of Its Online Readership,' Guardian.co.uk, 18 July 2010.
Greybeard, 'The Times They Are A-Changing; Paywall Sees Two Thirds Drop In Web Traffic,' Unthinkable.biz, 19 July 2010.
Matthew Ingram, 'Rubert's Paywall Is Meant To Keep People In, Not Out,' Gigaom.com, 19 July 2010.
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