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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
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Times Paywall traffic loss less than expected
July 20, 2010
It’s been a few weeks now since The Times made their controversial move to take their content behind a paywall and charge online consumers to read their content.
The move has attracted a lot of attention as The Times is the first general news content provider to charge for its online content. Specialist publications such as the Wall Street Journal have successfully made the transition from free content to online paywalls, but The Times does not provide the niche content of a specialist publication and there has been ample speculation about consumers deserting The Times in favour of free online content.
We provided data to the Financial Times that revealed that The Times had lost two thirds of its market share by visits since the paywall was erected. In the weeks before the paywall went up www.thetimes.co.uk received an average of 4.29% of all visits to the News and Media – Print category. By the week ending 10 July 2010, The Times’ market share of visits had dropped to 1.43%, just 33% of where it had been five weeks previously.
The latest data for the week ending 17 July 2010 shows that The Times' market share has dropped off further still to 1.37% of the News and Media – Print category. The rate of decline is slowing however and the data suggests visits to The Times’ website are stabilising.
Experts and commentators may crow that this is exactly what they said would happen when Rupert Murdoch first took the decision to put The Times behind a paywall. Just take a moment though to see what the site has achieved.
The Times has retained a third of their online visits, and visitors are still spending an average of around three minutes per visit on the website, indicating that they are happy to pay for the content and not disappearing to alternative sites for news.
The website is also still ranked higher than the Financial Times in terms of market share of visits, its nearest competitor in the paywall market. The FT has received deserved praise for its financial model, with one journalist suggesting they had “unlocked the secret of eternal profitability”. If The Times can match that feat with its paywall then the exercise has been a success.
Time will tell if The Times loses further internet traffic and when the introductory offer of “£1 for the first 30 days” expires perhaps consumers will search for their news content from other providers. So far though, The Times seems to be doing just fine. For now Mr Murdoch’s gamble has paid off.
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- Hitwise UK Reports The Times Traffic Loss from Paywall is "Less That Expected" (Search Engine News)
Okay, so maybe Rupert Murdoch will get the last laugh. According to the headline of today's post [Read More] - Traffic Loss To The Times Due To Paywall (AccuraCast Search Daily News)
Following the trend started by some other publications, The Times of London has recently started the practice of using a paywall to prevent readers from accessing their online content for free. The paywall system was introduced a few weeks ago, and it ... [Read More]
Comments
The fact that their market share has dropped might be incidental to The Times, if it means that now they have a mechanism to keep the doors open.
From an advertising stand point, while The Times might not represent or provide the volume it did in its the glory days, advertisers might find that their site performs better than average as its users are comfortable buying online and are also prepared to pay for, what is perceived to be, a valuable product or service.
Posted by Alistair | August 2, 2010 12:36 PM
I wonder if the market share of visit comparison is a fair one as The Times has a far broader readership than Financial Times' niche positioning. The former has an approximate ABC of around 500k whilst the latter has one of 330k.
If we were to weight this analysis would the same be true?
As you say, the crunch will come when the £1 for 30 days offer comes to an end. I look forward to the update.
Posted by Melanie Cook | August 2, 2010 02:23 PM
Of course Rupert's paywall business model has us all paying close attention, so these figures are very encouraging. Of course the real interest is whether he can achieve enough paying subscribers to turn a profit, and I would love to know what that particular figure is, but I guess we will all have to wait another year at least. Meantime it makes for a fascinating spectaor sport! Join the debate at www.contentetc.wordpress.com
Posted by Craig McGregor | August 2, 2010 04:56 PM
I think the conclusion, that "The Times seems to be doing just fine. For now Mr Murdoch’s gamble has paid off" is bizarre.
First of all, it's not clear to the reader whether the site visits you talk about are visits beyond the paywall (i.e. paying customers) or just visitors to www.times.co.uk, where non-payers can stil get a decent summary of the news from the front page facsimile without having to register or pay anything. I still visit this page from time to time, as I'm sure many do, but have no plan to sign up.
Second, even in this short opening period, we see figures plunge from 4.29% to 1.43%, and then decline further, to 1.37%. You don't have to be an expert analyst to see what the trend is there.
You explain that the FT isn't a similar case as they occupy a specialist niche, then later on you invoke the FT as "its nearest competitor in the paywall market" to show The Times in a favourable light. As far as I can see it's the ONLY paywall competitor, and actually isn't a competitor at all in terms of the space occupied in the market.
Finally, you rightly suggest that the introductory offer of £1 per month is likely to skew the figures, so I'm really not sure what the point is of this analysis, at this stage. Let's look at the figures in 6 months, then 12 months from now. This will tell us far more.
In the meantime, given the scant data, I really can't see how you can justify such optimism for the paywall news market.
Posted by Andy | August 4, 2010 02:13 PM
Those who subscribe to the print edition get free access to the web site. Presumably Times employees and most probably other News International employees get free access too. Random visitors also get free access until after 'a while' The Times thinks they are ready to pay. Most are then never seen again.
The number of paying customers has been reported by a former Times employee as 15,000 so far. If this is the case, then the experiment has failed and pay cuts and job losses may be on the way.
Posted by Paul Clieu | August 7, 2010 01:39 AM
Time will tell if The Times loses further market share and when the introductory offer of “£1 for the first 30 days” expires perhaps consumers will search for their news content from other providers. So far though, The Times seems to be doing just fine. For now Mr Murdoch’s gamble has paid off.
Posted by gucci-womens | July 21, 2010 02:33 AM