OUCH! Even Readers of The Times Don’t Like Paying

If you recall I warned you good readers that the highly regarded newspaper, The Times, was going to start charging to view its online news-sites.

Well – it did and in so doing so lost 90% of its online readership.

The Guardian has found that not only has the percentage of online news traffic coming to visit The Times dropped from 15% to just 4.16%. – the thing is that, out of the final 4.16% only a quarter of them go on to pay to view the site!

Now, I realise that The Times is probably a premium ‘brand’ but this just goes to show that when you start directing readers from the main site to a registration page where you are challenged to pay £1 for one day or £2 for a week’s subscription people will simply go elsewhere.

Let’s face it – The Metro contains news, is free and also offers a free iPhone app so you get the day’s Metro delivered to your phone every morning. Did I mention that all that was free? 😉

Rupert Murdoch is still convinced that paid-for news services are the way forward – even in the face of the 90% drop in readership.

Do you think it’s working?