This month we’ve seen two of the big UK newspapers announce they’ll be moving behind an online pay wall in 2013. The Telegraph UK site is set to follow its international counterpart in making the move and, although no official date has been set, it’s likely it will be sooner rather than later as a way to avoid falling further behind rivals such as The Times.
More frugal consumers of online news will still be able to access 20 articles a month for free, but anything beyond that will come at a price. This model is already in place at the Financial Times and also across the Atlantic at the New York Times. The web package offers full access online and smartphone access for £1.99 a month, with a more expansive full package coming in at £9.99 which provides tablet device support and loyalty club membership.
The second publication to announce a pay wall this month is The Sun online, which follows fellow News International title The Times, which moved to a subscription model on August 17th this year. This will coincide with the start of the new Premier League season and could be used to launch the new online football highlights deal the Sun splashed £20m on in January. As part of this, The Sun now has the rights to show highlights from all matches online after 5.15pm on a Saturday.
MEC Opinion: This news will come as little surprise to many, especially when talking about The Sun, as Rupert Murdoch has always suggested all News Corp publications will eventually move behind an online pay wall.
As media planner s and buyers we’ll need to anticipate any drop in users when these pay walls are put in place and work out how this affects online campaigns and negotiations with advertisers.
One thing that we expect is that these titles won’t be the last to make the move across into an online subscription format, as UK titles continue to investigate ways to monetise online touchpoints while paper circulations decrease and online user figures increase.