Ever since Rupert Murdoch’s The Times erected a paywall a year ago, observers have been curious about whether it could bring in enough paying readers with such a strict no-free-content policy. This week, AdNews reported that the newspaper “now has 101,036 people signed up to its digital platforms including website, iPad and kindle wireless reading device”—a 28% increase from February’s tally of 79,000.
This time last year, there were reports that nobody was going past the registration page (not even print subscribers with free access), with one person guesstimating that less than 30,000 readers had subscribed to the website or the iPad app.
Although this may be good news for The Times, it’s not necessarily proof that such a strict model is the best business strategy. By contrast, The Financial Times—which lets you read 10 articles before paying—a year ago reported 149,000 subscribers; last month, it claimed to have 224,000 digital subscribers.
(Photo: nicksarebi)
Sorry to be nitpicker, but it’s “The Times”, not “The London Times”. If necessary, it can be disambiguated as “The Times (of London)”.