News Corp's Paywall Plan -- A Successful Disaster
Adrian Drury, a media analyst, says. "Fundamentally, at a brand-value level, you are killing the idea of times.co.uk as a channel choice for news online. That is something that is very difficult to recover" ... "The most disappointing thing for me is that there doesn't seem to have been any strategy to create unique, compelling content that would differentiate the online product," says Paul Bradshaw, a specialist in new media journalism. "I think it's 'business as usual' – which probably betrays that this is really about protecting the print product rather than establishing a genuine business around online content."
That said ...
The News of the World website is set to introduce charging next month. This is seen as a "statement of intent" by industry observers, and an indication that the other paywalls have not been disastrous.
"This is not a numbers game," says Greg Hadfield, former head of digital development at Telegraph Media Group and now an executive at the media agency CogApp. "The Times and The Sunday Times have a near-unique opportunity to build a one-to-one communication with someone about whom they know their name, email and credit card number." ... Bradshaw too believes that "the strategy is more about gathering consumer information than selling content."
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