Friday, September 10, 2010

The Lost Advertising Revenues as a Result of Rupert Murdoch's Paywall

News out of London is that advertisers are abandoning The Times since Rupert Murdoch put up a paywall:
Faced with a collapse in traffic to thetimes.co.uk, some advertisers have simply abandoned the site. Rob Lynam, head of press trading at the media agency MEC, whose clients include Lloyds Banking Group, Orange, Morrisons and Chanel, says, "We are just not advertising on it. If there's no traffic on there, there's no point in advertising on there." Lynam says he has been told by News International insiders that traffic to The Times site has fallen by 90 per cent since the introduction of charges. "That was the same forecast they were giving us prior to registration and the paywall going up, so whether it's a reflection on reality or not, I don't know."...There is also a widespread lack of enthusiasm for the new look Times website. "The most disappointing thing for me is that there doesn't seem to have been any strategy to create unique, compelling content that would differentiate the online product," says Paul Bradshaw, a specialist in new media journalism.

"I think it's 'business as usual' – which probably betrays that this is really about protecting the print product rather than establishing a genuine business around online content."

Rupert Murdoch's biographer, Michael Wolff, who runs the news aggregation site Newser, is deeply unimpressed by The Times' online offering: "It has the look of 2004 about it." He is unconvinced that the paywall, or Rupert Murdoch's recently expressed enthusiasm for the iPad, are signals of cultural change within the News Corporation empire. "Knowing News Corp and News International as well as I do, I'm sure that the investment they have made in technology has been minimal. There just is not a culture, a business discipline or philosophical interest in truly embracing technology."

Now it appears Murdoch may have removed the wall. Traffic this morning is gainning full access to thetimes.co.uk

1 comment:

  1. I just tried, and the pay wall is still there; too bad, it was a good news source from 'over there'. Good luck Rupert, you'll need it.

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