Everyone has been studying the Times paywall and scrutinising the figures to see if it’s working. Even Clay Shirky has parsed the stats and philosophised over the meaning of disrupting the business model. But what about the Screws?
Ahem. What I mean is, what about Britain’s best-selling newspaper that has had more agenda-setting scoops in the last 12 months than the rest of News International put together? Can the News of the World make the paywall pay?
I haven’t seen any figures since it went behind a wall in October and it’s much to early to call. But what about the principles involved?
At a Polis conference recently, even the Guardian admitted that they would try a paywall if they thought it stood any chance of succeeding. The evidence from the Times seems to be that it could work if you are happy with a much smaller audience and slimmer margins but the odds are still against the kind of profit-making that Mr Murdoch would expect from his commercial broadcasters, for example.
I have argued that a profit can be made in news media if you add value and create a community. And if you really have something special then you can put it behind a paywall. In other words, if you do stuff that other people don’t and if you have a very distinctive brand that feels very relevant to people’s lives and culture. I like the Times but I am not sure it really does that. The News of the World does.
I used to think that the Screws and its dependence on scoops was doomed online. It is the classic one-off newspaper. You read all the filth in one rush with Sunday breakfast and then that’s it. Interactivity or follow-ups aren’t really part of the deal. It’s firework journalism – a spectacular whoosh – a cry of ‘aaaaaaaaahh’ from the reader and then it’s all over. Surely that’s not the sustainable online experience that will generate the sustainable traffic?
I still think there is a grave risk of cutting yourself off from the mass audience if you are a mass media product. Will it still be the nation’s big talking point every Sunday if you have to pay to see it?
But perhaps the economics may work the other way. The fact that some of the News of the World’s material is exclusive means you will be prepared to pay to see the exclusive grainy photos and listen to the cliche-soaked interviews with the main protagonists.
So it’s not just because the News of the World is ‘down-market’ that means the paywall may work. Anyone can produce popularist rubbish. It is the principle that it is offering that vital ingredient of added value and relevance.
Of course, for the News of the World, this is not yet quite so urgent. The newspaper still sells millions and rakes in advertising revenue with the Dead Tree version. I guess the online is relatively marginal. But that equation will change. The chattering media classes are obsessed with the Times but the tabloid test is at least as important for the future of the journalism business model.
I also think there is a grave risk you will cut yourself off from your international specialist audience.
I follow religious blogs and Ruth Gledhill was always a huge force in Christian journalism. Her posts would be cross-posted and quoted everywhere, she had access to many influential people and she almost became one of the opinion shapers.
Now people still refer to what she wrote but she is only summarised not quoted and her international profile and influence are shrinking.
How long before people all over the world will no longer remember that the Times ever had anthing important to say about religion?
I expect this trend will be multiplied across many journalistic sections of a newspaper.
This is an interesting post and Erika’s comment is also interesting. Life behind the paywall is even more interesting! Actually I quite like it but it has certainly changed how I do my job. In one sense, I have my ‘life’ back as my blog took up all of my waking hours when I wasn’t writing news stories and I was neglecting our son and other areas of my life outside work. It was definitely an addiction. When I was wired up, I felt physically part of the internet, the blogosphere. I still miss that heady feeling of being totally integrated with the ‘ether’. It is still too early to say what its long-term effects are going to be in all the areas mentioned above. I miss my old blog terribly. But sometimes one just has to accept ‘life’ and move with The Times, as it were. I work for The Times. The relationship is not the other way round. And much as though I loved doing my blog, maybe that relationship was becoming reversed in a way that was healthy for my personal profile but perhaps not healthy enough in a monetising way for the company that pays my wages. I don’t know. It is interesting being part of this experiment. I probably would not be so sanguine if I were not part of a programme in which for the past 25 and a half years, I have become expert at the art of ‘letting go’! And I am getting a lot more guitar practice in that I used to do, now that my activities in the blogosphere are limited to commenting on posts such as this. Of course I still do Articles of Faith for The Times, and for the ‘human RSS’ I have set up (email me ruth.gledhill@thetimes.co.uk if you want to go on that…) but I write it in a different way now. I had the Archbishop of York on it the other day, and we are running a great confirmation diary by Kat Brown.