I don't understand the numbers here. They report 105,000 electronic-only subscribers plus another 100,000 electronic-plus-print subscribers, for a total (follow me closely here) of 205,000 people with subscriptions that allow them to see the Times Online site. That seems to be the total since the Times paywalled itself four months ago, for a monthly average of 51,250 subscribers. But the article then goes on to say "The Times Online site was registering about 21 million unique users a month earlier this year but the figure fell by 87% to about 2.7 million last month" 2.7 million is more than fifty times the figure above. So which is it?
Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
11–20 of 51 posts
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#12To be honest, I'd be a lot happier with my subscription if the website actually worked...At work I'm constantly getting 502'd when I try and read it during lunch. It's fine from at home, but it's still very irritating.
I'm curious, what was your motivation for subscribing to the Times instead of getting your news from elsewhere?
And, connection problems aside, are you satisfied enough with the service to continue paying for it?
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#13I don't understand the numbers here. They report 105,000 electronic-only subscribers plus another 100,000 electronic-plus-print subscribers, for a total (follow me closely here) of 205,000 people with subscriptions that allow them to see the Times Online site. That seems to be the total since the Times paywalled itself four months ago, for a monthly average of 51,250 subscribers. But the article then goes on to say "…
Visitors who don't make it past the paywall perhaps?
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#14I'm calling a spade a spade. 100,000 people is pathetic. Note that this is not subscribers - this is "the total amount of people who have paid in one way or another". 50,000 of those are subscribers, which in PR-speak probably means "people who have subscribed" i.e. not the current amount of subscribers. With an in-built audience of over a million in circulation, plus a reach that goes far beyond that, an ad campaign…
You can call it all you want, but it sure works better for them than giving out freebies.
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#15I'm calling a spade a spade. 100,000 people is pathetic. Note that this is not subscribers - this is "the total amount of people who have paid in one way or another". 50,000 of those are subscribers, which in PR-speak probably means "people who have subscribed" i.e. not the current amount of subscribers. With an in-built audience of over a million in circulation, plus a reach that goes far beyond that, an ad campaign…
You can call it all you want, but it sure works better for them than giving out freebies.
Do we know this? You would need to see the change in advertising revenue between before this was implemented and now. You also have to factor in the rate of growth in readership to before and after.
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#16To be honest, I'd be a lot happier with my subscription if the website actually worked...At work I'm constantly getting 502'd when I try and read it during lunch. It's fine from at home, but it's still very irritating.
I'm curious, what was your motivation for subscribing to the Times instead of getting your news from elsewhere? And, connection problems aside, are you satisfied enough with the service to continue paying for it?
To me, reading the news is a very important part of my day. I always feel slightly uncomfortable when reading Guardian/Telegraph, almost certainly because the Times aligns with my political spectrum much closer.
The cost is worth the fact that I find the articles much more...enjoyable(I'm not entirely sure that's the best word!).
Connection problems aside, I have been satisfied with the service. If I hadn't been a Times reader before, I don't think there's anything there that would persuade me to pay for it, but to me, the cost is worth it.
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#17These numbers seem totally PR-ified.
"The figures include subscribers to the print version of the papers who receive an online subscription as a result."
So some of those people who they are counting as having "subscribed" to the paywalled content might not even have an internet connection.
What are the total number of print subscribers? Im guessing it's a pretty large proportion of that figure.
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#18I'm calling a spade a spade. 100,000 people is pathetic. Note that this is not subscribers - this is "the total amount of people who have paid in one way or another". 50,000 of those are subscribers, which in PR-speak probably means "people who have subscribed" i.e. not the current amount of subscribers. With an in-built audience of over a million in circulation, plus a reach that goes far beyond that, an ad campaign…
You can call it all you want, but it sure works better for them than giving out freebies.
Actually it doesn't. The potential advertising revenue probably exceeds the revenue from subscriptions.
I've seen this before even when subscriptions for a news site was actually very good but potential advertising from page views would be better. (TimesSelect/The New York Times)
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#19I don't understand the numbers here. They report 105,000 electronic-only subscribers plus another 100,000 electronic-plus-print subscribers, for a total (follow me closely here) of 205,000 people with subscriptions that allow them to see the Times Online site. That seems to be the total since the Times paywalled itself four months ago, for a monthly average of 51,250 subscribers. But the article then goes on to say "…
It doesn't make sense to divide the number of subscribers by the number of months - a subscriber is likely to be a long term customer (I appreciate the number of trial subs will be significant, but...), so x/4 seriously understates the monthly average.
Re: Times and Sunday Times reveal online reader figures
#20I wonder how many of these users paid for news because they didn't realize they could go elsewhere?
My Dad rang me a few years ago and was like "hey, just bought iTunes, do they email me a download link?" and I was confused - what did he mean bought? It's free from Apple.
Turns out he google'd "iTunes download" and clicked the first result (an adword) and paid £25 for iTunes. I later actually met a guy that ran this scam, he said he made thousands each month. (Apple/Google has cracked down on this recently)
My point is, if you have thetimes.co.uk as your homepage, and you trust that for news - if one day you're asked to pay £1/month or whatever, would non internet savvy users just pay it? I expect quite a few would.