[LINK] Rupert Murdoch's Paywall Disaster: Readers, Advertisers, Journalists & Publicists All Hate It

[Kim Holburn]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100903/16545310903.shtml

> Rupert Murdoch's Paywall Disaster: Readers, Advertisers, Journalists  
> & Publicists All Hate Itfrom the and-it's-working-for-who-exactly?  
> dept
> We had already seen the early indications that Rupert Murdoch's  
> paywalls from The Times and The Sunday Times in the UK were a dismal  
> failure, but as more information gets leaked about how the paywalls  
> are working out, it's looking worse and worse. Beyond  the fact that  
> not too many people are signing up to pay, the move has upset  
> advertisers who don't want to advertise to such a small audience:
>
> Faced with a collapse in traffic to thetimes.co.uk, some advertisers  
> have simply abandoned the site. Rob Lynam, head of press trading at  
> the media agency MEC, whose clients include Lloyds Banking Group,  
> Orange, Morrisons and Chanel, says, "We are just not advertising on  
> it. If there's no traffic on there, there's no point in advertising  
> on there." Lynam says he has been told by News International  
> insiders that traffic to The Times site has fallen by 90 per cent  
> since the introduction of charges. On top of that, various PR people  
> and publicists are keeping their sources away from Times reporters,  
> preferring to provide access to news  organizations where the story  
> might actually get seen by people, rather than locked up behind  
> Murdoch's paywall: Publicists have told me that clients are  
> increasingly reluctant to give interviews or stories to The Times,  
> on the grounds that they would not be made freely available via  
> search engines. Oh yeah, and because of all of that, journalists at  
> the papers aren't very happy either. None of this should be a  
> surprise, of course. Many folks, including us, warned that this  
> would happen. Murdoch and his supporters keep trying to spin a happy  
> story about the paywall, and are expected to release some official  
> data soon, but the feedback coming out already suggests that rather  
> than "saving" his newspapers, this action may have sped up the  
> troubles they face.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/online/has-rupert-murdochs-paywall-gamble-paid-off-2067907.html


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Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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