Lack Of Enough Unique Content And Usefulness Hits The Times of London Pay Site Hard

Philip M. Stone September 30, 2010 Follow on Twitter

Still no word from News International on the financial success of it pay walls for The Times and The Sunday Times, but one thing is for sure – readership is way down -- according to comScore, and based on success stories elsewhere in Europe a rethink is needed on how to do it right.

In August, the second month of the pay walls and also the month most Brits and Europeans for that matter go on holiday and are less likely to think about news, readership at The Times’ web site dropped 7.6% and that was on top of the 26.7% drop in July – its first month. At its primary quality newspaper competitors, the August doldrums also took their toll but not near as bad – The Guardian was down 1.6% and The Telegraph was down 1.1%. In terms of unique visitors, The Times came in last of the three with the leader-of-the-pack Guardian having 25% more. 

You might say that considering the pay wall that 25% difference isn’t really that bad, but remember hitting a newspaper’s free home page counts as a visitor and when visitors find no further free access then they’ll leave very quickly – probably to a competitor -- which is why time spent on the Times’ site and the number of page views are said to be way down.

So, does this mean that pay walls don’t work? No, but you’ve got to go about it the right way according to John Einar Sandvand, editor  of Schibsted’s Media Digital Norway. Sandvand said in a recent presentation that the Schibsted experience for newspaper web site success is that it must have at least one, and preferably two of: unique content, unique convenience, unique usefulness, unique packaging and unique experience – notice the prime word is “unique”.

He believes The Times’ pay wall will fail mainly because it has surrounded the entire site except for the home page. “This is a risky strategy, and chances are that they will fail,” he said. And while The Times may believe it offers plenty of “unique content” do readers really perceive it that way?

“As a national news site in a big English-language market do people really perceive the content to be so unique that it is worth paying for? The verdict is still out: my prediction is that they will fail.” He acknowledges the Times Plus section offers a unique usefulness with its commercial offers and discounts on travel, entertainment and the like, similar to a very successful feature of Schibsted’s Aftonbladet Plus site in Sweden, but it needs more.

By contrast he points to another Murdoch property, TheWall Street Journal,  which he says is successful because it has at least two of the “uniques.”  He asked, “Does The Wall Street Journal offer unique content? Yes, it does. Yet, the most important proposition is unique usefulness. The brand is extremely strong in providing financial information – and readers are able to convince themselves and their employers that reading The Wall Street Journal actually makes them better at doing their job and in making money for their company.  And with the employers picking up the bill, WSJ got itself a good business model.” This is basically what ftm has been saying all along!

So, then, he looks at two Schibsted success stories -- Aftenposten in Norway and Aftonbladet in Sweden, both of which have at least two of the “uniques” to make pay work. At Aftenposten, the newspaper offers its digital archive that goes back to 1860. It contains near 2 million pages, unique in Norway and thus “unique content”.  He says the content had been available before via library microfilm and the like, but now that search can be done at  home. That’s “unique convenience”.

And at Aftonbladet it’s the Aftonbladet Plus subscription service offering premium content. It’s a huge success with 115,000 subscribers paying 29 kroner ($4.25, €3.15) monthly with a 15% discount for one annual payment. The premium service has additional journalists and additional editors to choose the pick of the litter. That takes care of “unique content”. Additionally the premium service goes strongly into lifestyle with some 200 guides for travel, health, car reviews and the like with instructional guides on how to do things that may not be part of your everyday life. So there’s “unique usefulness”.

News agencies over the years have had a very basic business model – subscriptions and not a la carte – because if you let people pick and choose only what they really want at a low price then subscriptions disappear. And Aftonbladet, having allowed micropayments recently, has learned that lesson. By letting readers pick just the items they wanted with low micropayments new subscriptions dropped dramatically. So some tweaking was in order – now only some stories are eligible for micropayments – usually those thought to be of less interest -- and it hiked the micropayment price so that taking just three a month costs more than the monthly subscription.

But for all of this, online revenues are still far less than print. But Web revenues are growing and the sites prove there are various ways to be financially viable, as long as you follow the “unique” standard. 

The Times can argue if offers unique content, even unique usefulness, but the way readers are going elsewhere it would appear to be not enough. Marketing hasn’t sold the unique concept and having the site completely tucked away behind the pay wall except for the home page means people can’t discover what they’re missing. Worst of all it appears few are willing to pay even £1 for 30 days to find out. 

Not a winning proposition.

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