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The New York Times paywall leads to plummeting readership
NEWS ORGANISATION The New York Times is feeling the pinch after erecting a paywall on its website, according to figures from Hitwise.
The New York Times became the latest old media institution to put up a paywall on its website, following Rupert Murdoch's lead with the London Times.
Confirmed readership figures for the London Times following its paywall installation have been closely guarded but web traffic monitoring firms have noted significant declines and it seems the New York Times is suffering a similar fate.
Web analytics firm Hitwise reports that The New York Times' daily readership figures fell between five per cent and 15 per cent for the 12 days following the paywall's installation. Of greater concern are Hitwise's page view figures, which show declines of up to 30 per cent, with most days showing close to a 20 per cent drop in page views on The New York Times' website.
There had been a lot of noise regarding the cost of the New York Times' paywall, with some reports pegging it at $50 million while others claimed something in the neighbourhood of $25 million. Techniques to bypass the 20 articles per month limit were also posted but despite the cost and methods to circumnavigate the paywall, if Hitwise's figures are accurate, The New York Times need not worry about its web servers buckling under the traffic load.
It is likely that Murdoch and other News International executives are watching how The New York Times fares very closely. Murdoch has said a number of times that paywalls are the only way to guarantee quality journalism on the web. That may be up for debate but what isn't in question is that erecting paywalls hits audience figures hard.
Both Murdoch and The New York Times will have to wait and see whether revenue from subscribers can offset the losses in advertising revenues due to plummeting audience figures. µ
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"While ratings of balanced media like Fox soar, the left wing media continues its atrophy. It's all because the consumers have a choice now."
ROTFLMAO!!!! Faux News..."balanced"...I don't care who you are, that's funny right there. Good one! :-D
Now back to the paywall issue. Folks like Mr. Murdoch would do very well to inform Pamela "PJ" Jones of Groklaw of this "fact" (HAHAHAHA!!!) that paywalls are the only way to ensure quality journalism. PJ has been out-reporting the "mainstream reporters" for almost nine years now. And there are plenty of others like her. Sorry, Rupert, you're normally a smart guy, but EPIC FAIL for you on this one.
The trend is showing clearly. People are giving up their print newspapers in droves. Poor journalism is one factor. We don’t need newspapers any more, not even to wrap up the kitchen scraps. There are more convenient and more reliable and more accurate sources of news. Newspapers will be no great loss. Once upon a time they were important. Now they are not. The timber forests from which newsprint was sourced can return to more useful plantings.
While ratings of balanced media like Fox soar, the left wing media continues its atrophy. It's all because the consumers have a choice now.
All you need to do to break the pay wall is to delete the cookies on your computer. Then the 20 article counter starts over. The NY Times will eventually figure this out.
I don't mind having my tax paid for a quality unbiased news organisation to maintain news coverage, much like the TV license fee keeping BBC going. A paid subscription model I am not sure if that's good idea at all.
This plummeting reader simply goes under the wall.
I'd simply hate for them to lose my unique hits.
https://twitter.com/timeswiretap
I havnt bought a paper in years, and wouldnt pay for access to news on a web site that is free elsewhere. A couple of pay based news web sites vs the whole web of bloggers, free news sites and other media sites is just not going to have the impact they hope it will. The law of least resistance will mean that people will simply view their news content from non paywall sites, leading the paywall sites to lose out in viewers which will decrease ad revenue which will only speed up the process until only murdock is left viewing his own sites.