Comments on: Times’ Audience Numbers Struggle, Subscriptions Offer Hope

By: Thomas Schiefer

Thomas Schiefer — Wed, 04 May 2011 23:21:41 +0000

I’m using the iPad edition and the website and I have access to it because I subscribe the print edition. It is a great online experience and I would subscribe to it for £2 per week if I wouldn’t get the paper as well. Firstly journalists must be rewarded for their work and therefore it is only fair to pay for good content and secondly the pay wall makes sure that it is really fun to read the comments to articles because on free web sites comments tend to be very radical and the same extreme people are commenting with more or less over and over with the same remarks. So, well done. News Corp. Hope that the online circulation grows to a point where you are proven right.

By: Richard Tobin

Richard Tobin — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 12:32:49 +0000

Of these initial subscribers I suspect a large number are media, political, academic and professional entities, obligated to having access to the Times and thinking little about cost since they are not dipping into their own pockets. The further recruitment of this quality of subscriber will be ruled by a law of demising returns; the bulk may already being in place.

By: Jude

Jude — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 10:54:09 +0000

Does Apple or Amazon take a cut of the subscription on those devices, or does the entire subs amount $9,99 etc. accrue to Newscorp? If not, the figures above are likely to be worse than expected. Kudos to Newscorp for having the balls to reveal its figures (though flawed).

By: Kagem

Kagem — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:27:42 +0000

Those are still impressive numbers from News Corp. As much as many people can’t stand RM, he is a pioneeer in this field. Hats off to him for giving it a go and converting people.

I think the people at the New York Times will be studying this carefully.

By: Robert Andrews

Robert Andrews — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:56:04 +0000

Indeed, who does know?
Regardless of the cumulative aspect to the individual payments, however, the “around half of them are monthly subscribers” line is *current* – that’s 50k-ish current active subscribers – confirmed with News Corp. today.
The notion that iPad subs may be the majority of those may be tempered by the fact that they sort of screwed up the subscribability of the iPad edition – they had to give away consecutive free months; only now is there a recurring mechanism, and anyway, they’re giving the first iPad month free.

By: Dennis Publishing

Dennis Publishing — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:52:00 +0000

As you said, the figures are cumulative “paid-for customer sales” – so 52,000 subscription sales could well be 18k people subscribing for 3 months… Or 52,000 people who paid a £1 for the trial. Or 52,000 sales of iPad apps over 4 months. Who knows.

By: Ashley Norris

Ashley Norris — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:25:55 +0000

I do wonder how inflated those numbers are. For example I may be counted twice – once for a free iPad sub and a second for the day I subscribed for a day pass. If I am typical then NI certainly isn’t generating a lot of income.

Also I suspect the iPad figures are skewed. iPad curiosity is high – look at how well the first edition of Wired did – but keeping people coming back for more once their curiosity has been sated is a mammoth task for publishers. I would bet that only a tiny % of the original iPad subscribers are paying for the service on a monthly basis.

Personally I would love to see the paywall become successful. It would at least provide the media with a business model on which to develop newspapers and magazines, pay staff and make profits. It would also make the more specialist sections of mainstream media (technology, food, music etc) a lot less influential which would create fantastic opportunties for publishers and brands in the open web.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:05:22 +0000

knowing the digital turnover figures of some other newspapers, I reckon their pre paywall digital revenues must have been around £1.2m – £1.5m a month. So they would need to triple that figure to beat their pre paywall revenues. I think they can actually achieve that (and more) given that more publishers will raise pay walls and consumers moving to iPads/iPhones for their news (phones have easier payment models than online). It will take time, questions is more if they’re willing to wait for that…