Some meaningful numbers on the Times paywall
November 2, 2010
4 Comments
The reporting may have been lazy, but I've got hold of the actual breakdown of the Times paywall numbers:
- 105,000 paid-for sales to date in any form (NB journos - NOT subscribers)
- Half of these ARE monthly subscribers (digital sites plus iPad / Kindle edition)
- The rest are single copy or pay as you go.
- 100,000 joint digital/print subs who have activated their accounts (figure for ongoing use not given).
Including the joint digital/print subs (despite not knowing how many are active), that means they've got 150,000 subscribers to their digital products.
Which is actually quite good. It's a shame that the initial numbers were so misreported (the press release, however, was very clear).
Any idea on break even numbers?
Of those 150,000, though, only 50,000 are contributing to the site's income (since the 100,000 print subscribers who have activated their online account aren't paying any extra for it). And we don't know how many of that 50,000 are on the "pound for a month" trial and didn't (or won't) renew when it expires.
I think that what's more telling here is the dog that didn't bark - the fact that they haven't told us how revenue compares to the previous free to view, but advertising funded, site. Because that's what really matters - readership figures are just marketing puffery, it's the bottom line that counts. And I'm sure if they had seen an upturn in revenue as a result of the paywall, they'd be falling over themselves to brag about it.
[...] the publisher has advanced the debate by revealing official measurement of over 150,000 ‘paid-for sales’ across their digital products. However, sceptics are questioning how many of [...]
Given the marketing spend and capital costs as well as the not insignificant running costs (some of which would be shared with the print edition), I think this represents a hidden disaster. Less than a few hundred thousand eyeballs a month would also seriously hurt a brand as big as the times in terms of advertising potential so I fail to see the good news in this.