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The Times Paywell Announced
In a blow to the newly active Chairman and Chief Executive of ITV, the Competition
Commission have this morning definitively ruled that the CRR remedy, (which allows buyers
of advertising airtime to renew their existing contracts with ITV, with investment adjusted to
reflect the change in ITV1’s audience share), will be maintained for the foreseeable future.
The only concession that the Commission has made to ITV’s extensive lobbying is an
amendment to include viewers delivered by the ITV1+1 and ITV1HD channels.
The Times has made a distinct strategic shift in online policy in June with the introduction of paid subscriber access only to both The Sunday Times and The Times websites at £2 per week (although print subscribers will receive the service for free). It is no secret that News International have struggled to make any money from online revenues via advertising and have made the decision that the risk to its online advertising revenue with a subscription model is one worth taking. Times Online currently drives 2.6million UK unique users per month (Comscore) and this figure is likely to drop significantly (90%) with the new subscription model, making it a smaller site than the likes of Manchester Evening News or Daily Record.
The Times recognises the threat of this huge drop off so are looking to allow users to have a month free trial (which will commence tomorrow) with the subscription levy applied thereafter. This is part of a News International policy to become a paid for content provider across all platforms, and could well see bundles offered to consumers which will include i-pad/smart phone applications, The Sun and potentially Sky.
The hope from the Times is that the users they do retain will be much more involved in a more personalised Times - this will drive up dwell time, pages viewed and impact of advertising units. Equally important is that they will have registered data on their users and can therefore offer advertisers more highly targeted and behaviourally relevant opportunities. Clearly the sales policy will be to increase prices based on this higher quality, but the bottom line is that their content has to offer higher value to consumers than available free elsewhere for this to work.
All publishers will be watching this development with keen interest and will utilise learnings to develop their own strategies. Whilst The Times have opted for this strategy, The Guardian have taken the polar opposite view. They argue that you cannot control online content, so instead have made their platform open source, offering content to approved partners to expand their reach in commercial agreements, whilst accepting content or technology in return.
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