Why the reported Times paywall numbers are meaningless.
Update: I've got the figures broken down. The Guardian is reporting the success of the Times paywall figures with "hard figures for online subscribers to the The Times and the Sunday Times ... News International announced this morning that 105,000 people have paid to access either the papers' websites and/or the iPad andf Kindle apps."
This figure looks completely meaningless to me. People "paying to access" include those, like me, who have paid for a 24-hour subscription once.
That does not mean we are subscribers.
If 104,999 have paid for 24-hour access ever, that would mean they had 1 subscriber. If no-one had paid for 24-hour access, they might still have 105,000 app buyers but no website subscribers.
So without a breakdown, there is nothing you can read into these figures.
Times paywall
Any chance of getting one ...? No, I thought not. (Update Apologies for cynicism. I got one!)
Totally agree with you on this. You can be sure if the other newspaper groups thought the paywall was working they'd be doing the same thing.
Also includes people like me who have free access to the website because we pay for vouchers to collect the paper Times & Sunday Times from our newsagent each day - but very rarely access the website.
Thanks for clarifying the data.
Another important issue to consider is what's happened to their traffic in the last few months since the paywall went up.
If they were seeing any growth from their new benchmark it would suggest subscribers are seeing value and they are able to successfully market to a new audience.
Instead they are seeing a continuous decline.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/timesonline.co.uk
So unless something else changes, either marketing or product, then it's just a matter of time before they fail.
[...] Why the Times paywall numbers are meaningless. (malcolmcoles.co.uk) [...]
[...] for hope now, particularly given that there is little indication that paywalls are working – see here for an analysis of the results released back in November by the Times in the UK and pause for a [...]