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Paid for Times has 100,000 readers
PAYWALL LOCKED UK NEWSPAPERS the Times and the Sunday Times are celebrating their first paid for birthdays and their glorious 100,000 subscribers.
When The Times decided to shut itself behind a paywall at this time last year. there was some scepticism about how well it would do. Well, it seems that it has done very well indeed, according to News Corp.
So The Times, a long-standing UK newspaper known across the world can stand proud and say that as of this week, 100,000 people are reading it and the Sunday Times combined every month.
"One year on from launch we have proved that people are willing to pay for quality journalism in digital formats. Many doubted if our digital strategy would be successful, here is unequivocal proof it is moving in that direction," said Rebekah Brooks.
"We have more committed subscribers than ever before and they are choosing to access our journalism in whatever format suits them best. The growth rate for take up on tablets is moving at pace and we believe this valuable and attractive audience accessing our digital products will continue to grow."
The Times did not reveal what its monthly readership was before the drawbridge went up, but did kindly let us know that its paid readership had increased by 28 per cent since February and that the Times is downloaded onto an average of 35,000 Ipads every day, an increase of 40 per cent over the same period.
Meanwhile, having seen the newspaper's latest figures as reported by Nielsen, we can tell you that in May 2011 both newspapers had 11.9 million page impressions, while in April of last year that number was 40.6 million.
The newspapers' reach has also fallen, down from around seven per cent to around two per cent, a decline of over 71 per cent from its previous readership. µ
Tags: Internet
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I can't understand why anyone would want to read Rupert's propaganda to begin with, let alone pay for it.
From memory, Rupert had 172 newspapers at the time of the 2nd Iraq war. Every one of them came out in favour of the war. What a co-incidence!
Assuming they get 2 pounds a week, 52 weeks a year (like the iPad app seems to want), that's not bad. Also they are now in a grown market - its easy to see 200,000 subscribers being achievable in the near term. Given they are piggybacking the production of existing infrastructure to deliver the paper version I expect they think this is something of a success.
I'm curious what the advertising for a few million hits gives. Firefox claimed their Google adwords on their front page gave 50 millions dollars a few years ago. That's about £33 million. For an international browser with massive reach. After 1 year the Times are 1/3 the way there. Not bad for a single national newspaper...
A whopping 100k subscribers? Rupert must be so chuffed with himself to lower the Times to that level of subscribers.
Impressions and hits are so 2001. Remember when advertisers used to pay without any click-through requirements? Remember when companies paid people to surf with ads on their desktop? Yeah, those were the good ol' days huh?
Murdock just cut out the unpaying riff-raff "readership" that just wasted bandwidth. Companies know better than that now. A confirmed customer is worth far more than window shoppers.
In the news business, the most important network has always been the one with the largest readership.
By that rule, Murdoch has just succeeded in chopping his news legs back down to the size of a regional country rag.
Poetic justice ? Yup.
First they run MySpace in to the ground, and now claim that this paid-for model is a success.
100,000 punters world-wide, is a dribble in the ocean.
He's gained subscriptions and the contact details of people willing to pay in place of some free-loaders. Sounds like a good deal to me.
The final two pars are interesting but lack clarity.
Could you please explain more simply what you mean?
!
Meanwhile, having seen the newspaper's latest figures as reported by Nielsen, we can tell you that in May 2011 both newspapers had 11.9 million page impressions, while in April of last year that number was 40.6 million.
The newspapers' reach has also fallen, down from around seven per cent to around two per cent, a decline of over 71 per cent from its previous readership."
Thanks
"The newspapers' reach has also fallen, ~~ a decline of over 71 per cent from its previous readership."
Whohoo Murdock is as stupid as I thought.