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The Telegraph Media Group is drawing up plans to charge for online news content next year.
It would join News International and the Financial Times in putting its articles behind a paywall, having previously been a champion of free news content online.
The Telegraph’s change of heart is part of a growing consensus in the newspaper industry that a hybrid model of paid-for and free content is needed as publishers confront steady declines in print circulation and the loss of advertising to web rivals.
A person familiar with the Telegraph’s strategy said: “The final decision has not been made, but it will not be an impregnable paywall like the Times. It will be a metered system or, less likely, micropayments.”
Another person closely concerned with the change in policy said it was not inconsistent with the Telegraph’s past approach, adding: “We never said never to paying for content. It is a process of evolution.”
On timing, the first person said that the payment system was unlikely to be introduced before next summer, but added: “It will be in 2011.”
A Telegraph Media Group spokesperson said: “Like all publishers, TMG continually evaluates the developments in the digital sector. No decisions have been made on the introduction of a paid-content model.”
The Telegraph’s website attracted 33.9m users in October, up 6 per cent on the previous year, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation.
That placed it behind the Daily Mail’s website, which with 50m monthly users is the UK’s most visited news site, and Guardian.co.uk, which attracted 37.5m monthly users.
Rupert Murdoch’s News International this year became the UK’s first general news publisher to embrace the paywall model, charging readers for online access to The Times, The Sunday Times and The News of the World.
No audited figures are available for the News International web titles, although the company said that between July and November it had sold 105,000 digital products .
The Telegraph will not follow the “all-or-nothing” model favoured by News International, which prevents readers from accessing any articles without paying and has seen stories removed from search engines such as Google News.
Instead, the Telegraph’s approach will echo that of the Financial Times and the forthcoming New York Times paywall, whereby readers can access a certain number of articles for free before being charged.
Douglas McCabe, media analyst at Enders, said TMG’s plans tallied with a broader acceptance in the industry that a hybrid model – with some content available for free, and some behind a paywall – offered publishers the best way to remain “part of the conversation” online.
“I think overall we’re going to move into a period where publishers will experiment with part-free and part-paid,” he said. “The advantage of a metered paywall is that all the news is still findable on Google. As newspaper publishers, these businesses need a share of voice – it’s what they do, it’s their raison d’être. Therefore you need a strategy that optimises audiences as well as revenues.”
The Telegraph’s change of strategy comes at a time of divergence in the industry, between those seeking to replace falling circulation revenues and declining advertising sales with paywall income on the one side, and those seeking to build mass audiences that generate advertising sales on the other.
Until now the Telegraph has been in the latter camp, alongside the Daily Mail’s MailOnline and the Guardian, although all three generate online revenues from e-commerce.
Both the Daily Mail & General Trust and the Guardian Media Group have pledged to keep their main websites free of charge, in order to attract the highest volume of users and advertising revenues, while charging for mobile and tablet apps."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c1b70b9e-fc8b-11df-a9c5-00...
Well at least we still have the Daily Mail and Guardian!
It would join News International and the Financial Times in putting its articles behind a paywall, having previously been a champion of free news content online.
The Telegraph’s change of heart is part of a growing consensus in the newspaper industry that a hybrid model of paid-for and free content is needed as publishers confront steady declines in print circulation and the loss of advertising to web rivals.
A person familiar with the Telegraph’s strategy said: “The final decision has not been made, but it will not be an impregnable paywall like the Times. It will be a metered system or, less likely, micropayments.”
Another person closely concerned with the change in policy said it was not inconsistent with the Telegraph’s past approach, adding: “We never said never to paying for content. It is a process of evolution.”
On timing, the first person said that the payment system was unlikely to be introduced before next summer, but added: “It will be in 2011.”
A Telegraph Media Group spokesperson said: “Like all publishers, TMG continually evaluates the developments in the digital sector. No decisions have been made on the introduction of a paid-content model.”
The Telegraph’s website attracted 33.9m users in October, up 6 per cent on the previous year, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation.
That placed it behind the Daily Mail’s website, which with 50m monthly users is the UK’s most visited news site, and Guardian.co.uk, which attracted 37.5m monthly users.
Rupert Murdoch’s News International this year became the UK’s first general news publisher to embrace the paywall model, charging readers for online access to The Times, The Sunday Times and The News of the World.
No audited figures are available for the News International web titles, although the company said that between July and November it had sold 105,000 digital products .
The Telegraph will not follow the “all-or-nothing” model favoured by News International, which prevents readers from accessing any articles without paying and has seen stories removed from search engines such as Google News.
Instead, the Telegraph’s approach will echo that of the Financial Times and the forthcoming New York Times paywall, whereby readers can access a certain number of articles for free before being charged.
Douglas McCabe, media analyst at Enders, said TMG’s plans tallied with a broader acceptance in the industry that a hybrid model – with some content available for free, and some behind a paywall – offered publishers the best way to remain “part of the conversation” online.
“I think overall we’re going to move into a period where publishers will experiment with part-free and part-paid,” he said. “The advantage of a metered paywall is that all the news is still findable on Google. As newspaper publishers, these businesses need a share of voice – it’s what they do, it’s their raison d’être. Therefore you need a strategy that optimises audiences as well as revenues.”
The Telegraph’s change of strategy comes at a time of divergence in the industry, between those seeking to replace falling circulation revenues and declining advertising sales with paywall income on the one side, and those seeking to build mass audiences that generate advertising sales on the other.
Until now the Telegraph has been in the latter camp, alongside the Daily Mail’s MailOnline and the Guardian, although all three generate online revenues from e-commerce.
Both the Daily Mail & General Trust and the Guardian Media Group have pledged to keep their main websites free of charge, in order to attract the highest volume of users and advertising revenues, while charging for mobile and tablet apps."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c1b70b9e-fc8b-11df-a9c5-00...
Well at least we still have the Daily Mail and Guardian!
What this will mean is the limitation of the BBC news website. Fox news - Murdoch - have been putting pressure on the government for ages over the BBC. Indeed, despite the somewhat more important problems concerning this country, one of the first things it did was to demand that the BBC sell off some of its assets.
I don't agree with the paywall concept, these big old dinosaur companies have failed to moneytize their websites properly. Having worked on the online classifieds business for a few years now it amazing that these newspapers with their wealth did not snap up some of the bigger classifieds sites when they had the chance to do so.
Ironically one classifieds business that is mainly online these days is now starting free local news sites!
If I was given the opportunity I would love the chance to go in to one of the dinosaur companies and help turn them around.
Paywalls are not the right answer in my opinion.
Ironically one classifieds business that is mainly online these days is now starting free local news sites!
If I was given the opportunity I would love the chance to go in to one of the dinosaur companies and help turn them around.
Paywalls are not the right answer in my opinion.
Jackleman said:
I don't agree with the paywall concept, these big old dinosaur companies have failed to moneytize their websites properly. Having worked on the online classifieds business for a few years now it amazing that these newspapers with their wealth did not snap up some of the bigger classifieds sites when they had the chance to do so.
Ironically one classifieds business that is mainly online these days is now starting free local news sites!
If I was given the opportunity I would love the chance to go in to one of the dinosaur companies and help turn them around.
Paywalls are not the right answer in my opinion.
Don't fancy giving me some advice on my website, do you?Ironically one classifieds business that is mainly online these days is now starting free local news sites!
If I was given the opportunity I would love the chance to go in to one of the dinosaur companies and help turn them around.
Paywalls are not the right answer in my opinion.
Doesn't bother me. I used to enjoy the Times Online. Now I don't and they don't get a penny of my money as a result, save for the odd occasions I can be arsed to go out and buy a Sunday Times. I'll happily vote with my feet with the Telegraph too.
Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
Stu R said:
Doesn't bother me. I used to enjoy the Times Online. Now I don't and they don't get a penny of my money as a result, save for the odd occasions I can be arsed to go out and buy a Sunday Times. I'll happily vote with my feet with the Telegraph too.
Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
Now you don't get your news from The Times and will lose the Telegraph where will your news come from?Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
Fittster said:
Stu R said:
Doesn't bother me. I used to enjoy the Times Online. Now I don't and they don't get a penny of my money as a result, save for the odd occasions I can be arsed to go out and buy a Sunday Times. I'll happily vote with my feet with the Telegraph too.
Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
Now you don't get your news from The Times and will lose the Telegraph where will your news come from?Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
Fittster said:
Stu R said:
Doesn't bother me. I used to enjoy the Times Online. Now I don't and they don't get a penny of my money as a result, save for the odd occasions I can be arsed to go out and buy a Sunday Times. I'll happily vote with my feet with the Telegraph too.
Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
Now you don't get your news from The Times and will lose the Telegraph where will your news come from?Sadly their iPad App is way overpriced too. Never mind.
99.99% of the news is stuff I'm not concerned with or affected by, and if it's a huge breaking story it'll be all over the net anyway. It's a war I can genuinely see the media losing, especially when the likes of Google are investing in free news aggregation etc.
I appreciate they took a very thoroughly calculated risk when they put the paywalls up at The Times, and it's been pretty successful for them, but I'm still of the opinion they've dropped a clanger long before they did that by putting themselves in a position where they're playing catchup in terms of revenue generation technologies. The very people who should have been at the forefront of it.
I don't begrudge paying for the news, I begrudge paying so much when it's freely available elsewhere. Having trialled the Times since the paywall goes up, it offers incredibly poor value for money to me. I don't rate many of their columnists, I don't really give a monkeys about the frills that come with it, I just want the news and sports, and occasionally some of the foodie stuff that's worthy of looking at. Nothing that can't be found elsewhere.
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