Happy St Patrick’s Day!
Not an Irish bone in my body, but I do drink. So yay!
Changing the subject, if I’m reading this WSJ article right, the New York Times‘ second go at a paywall isn’t as retarded as it sounds.
They’re making around $100 million per annum on advertising (not too shabby!). They didn’t want to screw that up, so they looked at the numbers and worked out that 85% of their readers read 20 articles or fewer in a month.
That’s where they put the cutoff. Free front page and 20 articles a month. Print subscribers get full digital access, so they’re really just trying to squeeze a little juice out of whatever slice of the 15% heavy users aren’t already covered.
They’re asking stupid money, but they’re asking true believers. Non-story, really.
Not like the poor old Times of London. If Murdoch’s paywall was supposed to stop the bleeding, it failed: print circulation of the Times has dropped almost 15% this year. Pretty much on par with everyone else. Plus, their online readership (and the lovely advertising moolah that goes with) has dropped from 20 million uniques a month to to 50,000 subscribers.
Ow.
March 17, 2011 — 11:09 pm
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