The Times could lose 90% of its daily users with paid-for subscriptions

The new Times and Sunday Times websites have been unveiled in readiness for next month when both titles become the first in the UK to charge users for access. Users will pay £1 for a day’s access and £2 for a week’s subscription.

The owners, News International (NI) reckon they might lose 90% of their 1.22 million daily users. But that’s the risk they’re willing to take to prevent what they see as the current ‘free’ system undermining the value of journalism.

Other news groups will be eagerly sitting back and watching with interest as Rupert Murdoch’s news corporation leads the way.

And while NI is prepared to lose some readers it keeps quoting the experience of one of its flagship American title, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which currently has 407,000 electronic subscribers. But NI should proceed with caution. The WSJ is a specialist read - expecting users to pay to catch up on daily general news is a much bigger ask.

It also begs the next question – how are the specialist sections of The Times and Sunday Times going to fare in the brave new world of paywalls?

Media Matters regularly contribute to the property sections of these titles on behalf of our clients, in particular the well read and well regarded Bricks and Mortar supplement. I’m not certain how many current readers are going to pay to read this information in future.

So what will become of Bricks and Mortar? And what will become of other property sections if they follow suit and create online paywalls? This blog offers an interesting insight into the dilemma. Basically, it is predicting that property journalism and interest in the residential market could fall off.

And this might just be the beginning – other specialist areas of our great national daily papers could be lost because of the paywall barrier – could it signal the start of the end for the Sunday Times’ fashion supplement Style for instance, and will culture, finance, careers and business sections follow the same rocky road?

It’s certainly an interesting time – not only for readers but for journalists and the army of PR and freelance writers who contribute to these institutions.

What do you think? Should the paywall be welcomed as the way forward and will you be paying to subscribe?

Dawn Strange
Accounts Director