Online readers hate to pay, as London’s Times may find
21 Jul 2010
Visits to the website of London's venerable The Times newspaper have fallen by up to 90 per cent since it set up a 'paywall', according to figures compiled by various agencies.
Traffic in the week ended 10 July declined to 33 per cent of that before Rupert Murdoch's News Corp started telling users to register, according to Experian Hitwise.
The Guardian, one of the paper's biggest competitors, says The Times has lost almost 90 per cent of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory on 15 June.
Experian Hitwise monitors visits to websites as opposed to the number of visitors. The Times' share of traffic to news and media websites from the UK fell to 1.43 per cent from the earlier 4.46 per cent, Hitwise said in an e-mailed statement.
The Times and The Sunday Times are the first of four News International titles in the UK to move to an online pay model. They are among the first general-interest English-language newspapers to charge for web access as publishers search for new ways to earn revenue and curb free sharing of their news on internet search engines and aggregator sites. The New York Times plans to put up an internet paywall next year.
Online access to both The Times and The Sunday Times costs £1 (Rs71) a day or £2 pounds a week.