News International: What sort of a business deliberately tells such a multitude of readers to go away?
Raymond Snoddy says “when the starting whistle goes it’s wise to call a halt to the forecasts and predictions and just let the game take its course”…
For once News International are the decided underdogs. In fact it is rare to see media folk so united on anything. You can’t put general news behind paywalls and start charging because people simply won’t pay, goes the agreed dogma.
And moreover, however reasonable the charge – say £1 a day or £2 for the week – the great “they” will simply move on to where free is still available. There is plenty of choice at the BBC, and unsporting publishers such as The Guardian and Daily Mail remain determined to continue shipping free information by the truckload.
As Future chief executive Stevie Spring put it eloquently – “the basic rules of marketing say people will substitute and not pay for what they can get for free.”
Stevie could have gone further. Never mind the rules of marketing: How about the laws of physics? Then you can deploy the loss of influence argument. We will all gradually forget and lose interest in what goes on behind bramble encrusted walls.
However, this little argument doesn’t really work. More than 500,000 people buy The Times every day and they include every serious news organisation in the land. Anything interesting in The Times will still shoot round the world at the speed of light even if it no longer appears on Google. Another iron law of news – the velocity doubles every year.
As the Sunday Times editor John Witherow admitted with commendable candour, the paper will probably lose more than 90% of its online visitors the moment the paywalls go up. What sort of a business deliberately tells such a multitude to go away?
There is then the “I wouldn’t start from here if I were you” problem. Newspapers, including all the News International titles, have fallen over themselves for years to give their priceless journalism away for nothing.
The anecdotal evidence is everywhere. You even meet journalists who boast proudly that they read five papers a day without paying a penny – online.
Conventional wisdom is usually conventional for a reason. A lot of people agree with it.
The odds against paywalls working for general news are of the same order as Blackpool winning the Premier League. Though not many people outside Blackpool would have thought they had much chance of getting into the League in the first place.
At the very least the publishing industry should be very grateful to News International for conducting such an extensive, expensive and courageous experiment. Before too long we will know and the pundits can desist.
Older hands will remember a previous NI experiment – the move to Wapping, which transformed the fortunes of the rest of the industry for a decade or more.
What we don’t know so far is precisely what level of online subscription will be needed to bring in more money than the piss poor advertising yield from online.
A News International executive asked recently how many subscribers would be needed for this wheeze to wash its face replied “not many”. It could work financially with what might appear to be tiny number – John Witherow’s less than 10%.
Now they have nailed their colours to the mast, paywalls have to be seen as a long-term strategy.
If all else fails, the company should try bribes to entice subscribers. Bin ends from the Sunday Times Wine Club often work wonders. I should know after finally succumbing to the marketing blandishments of the Times + gang and will now get my Times and Sunday Times delivered by 7am at the latest – more like 5am probably.
I’m now summoning up enough courage to give the perfectly decent newsagent the bad news, though he will still be able to deliver some of the other titles.
It has been irritating – if entirely reasonable – that the excellent delivery boy has a lie-in on weekends and school holidays. But that wasn’t a deal breaker and modest discount on concert tickets with the Times + card doesn’t exactly set the world on fire.
But the four bottles of wine on offer, and rather decent bottles too, did the trick and tipped the balance. Targeted marketing in action.
Once the dust settles after the free gate has clanged shut it may be the more touchy-feeley stuff that pays dividends – creating relationships through as many contact points as possible. The equivalent of a club.
Culture Planner on the Sunday Times site is an interesting example of creating connections by allowing readers to move straight from a review to booking tickets.
Bribes in return for signing up for a year might might do it in the end and is probably already lined up for the second phase of the operation when original targets are missed.
In the meantime, it might be wise to ask the vicar of St. Brides to say a wee prayer over the pay wall – just in case.