The editors of the Telegraph, Guardian, and Daily Mail rub their hands in glee, anticipating more page views from former casual Times readers:
The Times and The Sunday Times will become the first British newspapers to charge readers to access the titles online from June, Rupert Murdoch’s News International announced on Friday.
Customers will have to pay one pound for one day’s access and two pounds for a week’s subscription, in a move that will be closely watched in a newspaper industry suffering steadily dropping sales.
Both Times titles will launch new websites in early May, replacing the existing combined site, Times Online.
I rarely link to Times articles as it is, so their decision to pull everything behind a paywall won’t have much direct effect on my reading habits. If it’s a success (for varying values of “success”), other newspapers may follow suit. That might start to impact me, as I do link to articles from other British newspapers on a more regular basis.
Personally, I think this move won’t work, but it’ll be interesting watching the experiment happen.
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