Category: Media

The Times opens its paywall…and a new strategy appears?

Yesterday The Times opened up its paywall to allow open access to its leader article on the future of the press regulation in the UK. The piece itself takes in different forms of regulation, and outlines some of what’s happened in the Leveson Inquiry so far. My personal favourite was:

“As the evidence of wrongdoing came to light, News International, Rupert Murdoch’s company that also owns The Times, was unable or unwilling to police itself. This was a disgrace”

For those who persist in the narrative that everything that Rupert Murdoch touches is inherently interlinked, the piece offered a solid riposte and made a several interesting arguments concerning the British press.

But it wasn’t really the content of the article that mattered. It was the timing.

Faces who made appearances at Leveson yesterday included James Harding, editor at The Times and John Witherow, editor at The Sunday Times. So the decision was taken to publish this leading article outside the paywall because it had direct relevance to events happening later in the day that concerned the paper.

“Today, the inquiry is hearing from The Times. This seems the appropriate moment to make clear to our readers the newspaper’s view on the future of the press.”

By dropping the paywall The Times ensured that attention from readers (and potential customers) was maximised because the topic of press regulation has never occupied a larger space in the public mindset. I’ve no idea of the traffic generated by the article, but it’s a surefire bet that it’s higher than usual in addition to increased social sharing on Twitter.

Why’s this important? Because you can easily see The Times using this kind of leverage again in the future, and not just on leading articles.

Imagine something extraordinary happens in the Republican party primaries. The Times’ Nico Hines gets an exclusive. Rumour is all over Twitter, but Hines is the only one who has the story. Editors at The Times hit publish and put the article outside the paywall. It would follow that there’d be an avalanche of traffic to the article, not only because it’s unusual for a newspaper that operates an airtight paywall policy to allow free access, but also because of the strength of the story.

The acid test would be to see how many readers would then decide that The Times were producing the kind of journalism that they liked and stump up £2 a week.

This kind of approach would lend particular articles more weight in the modern times of disposable content, because those not paying would race to see what they were missing. If they deemed £2 a fair price for more content of the same quality, they’d become subscribers.

Without stretching the analogy too far – it’s a bit like my relationship with the Frontline Club. Frontline organises excellent events with authoratative speakers on a range of topics covering journalism and current affairs. I go to its events, but I can’t afford the membership fee. The content is good, but the pricing isn’t right for me.

If people deem what they see ocassionally slipping out of the Times paywall to be worth the price of entry (I can count the people I know on two hands who subscribe for Caitlin Moran’s columns alone) then this kind of tactic could well be a new way to attract loyal subscribers to their brand. And, just like at Frontline, members are loyal.

Review: The Guardian iPad app

So a few days ago I blogged about the initial reaction to the Guardian’s iPad app when they announced it on Monday. Yesterday it finally hit the app store, and after several hours of stress-inducing load times, I’d upgraded my iPad to iOS 5 which meant that I could download the app.

The app features on Newsstand, Apple’s new system whereby you can see all your magazine and newspaper subscriptions in one place. So far mine is rather sparsely populated with the New Yorker and the Guardian, but it’s nice to know that there’s a dedicated place for my more long form reading.

I think that’s also the key here – it doesn’t make sense for me to put the New Yorker in the same “news” folder as Huff Post, Sky News and Flipboard – it’s a different reading experience, and so is the Guardian.

Anyway once you open up the app you’re given a free trial – mine doesn’t expire until 13 January next year, which gives you more than enough time to work out whether you like it or not and are likely to stump up the £9.99 monthly subscription fee.

It’s an issue based app, which has drawn some criticism, owing to the somewhat static nature of the app. However, I’m inclined to think that it’s a shrewd move by the Guardian, and one which shows that they’re very savvy when it comes to working across multiple platforms. Martin Belam also hinted at integrating story updates in a comment on my post earlier this week.

Data shows that the majority of tablet use is in front of a television or in bed – things that happen primarily in the evening after a day of work. This echoed Alan Rusbridger’s sentiment when he spoke about the Guardian’s printed output, saying that he viewed it as more Newsnight than News at Ten. So why not continue that kind of thinking with the iPad?

I’m on board with the concept behind the iPad app, because I think it epitomises Martin Belam‘s idea of stopping the shovels, but what about the functionality of the app itself?

Well, on starting up you’re presented with a crisply designed homescreen that provides a quick look at all the sections. You can scroll through the top bar independently to skip to a specific section, or browse down the front page if you’re after a more general read.

On opening the comment section, the app presents you with a few commentators’ mugshots as well as the cartoon of the day. To my eye, it’s far more attractive than the web version of Comment is Free, and feels right on an iPad. Tapping on a header takes you into the article, which is again a clean and uncluttered affair that screams “long read” at you.

Amazon’s Kindle is often the favoured device for voracious readers, but if executed well iPad apps can hold their own. From the article page you can share via email, Facebook and Twitter, taking advantage of the new iOS 5 functionality.

Cycling through the various sections of the app, you get the sense that each one has been tailored for its content. The Arts page, for example, is very strong on visuals with some arresting images, while others are more pared down.

Overall the app is a joy to use- and that’s what you want from a news app, something that compels you to pick it up each evening because you know the content is going to be presented elegantly and with attention to detail.

If I had one quibble it would be that in order to access the video section of the Guardian you have to visit the “on the website” category, which redirects to guardian.co.uk. It’s a shame that the iPad’s functionality as a mobile video viewer hasn’t been taken advantage of, but that’s a minor issue.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the app could be one of those hallowed few that become strongly associated with the device itself. Simply put, it should make you want to buy an iPad after using it. So give it a go, and let me know what you think.

UPDATE: Some discussion on Twitter this weekend revealed that at the moment the Guardian have decided not to include their weekend edition or the Observer in the app.

I was made aware of this by Patrick Smith, who opined that the Times app launched in May 2010 with all its sections. He was swiftly corrected, but the point remains that it feels a bit lacklustre that the Guardian haven’t included weekend editions from the outset – it would follow with the more contemplative attitude of the app which is suited to weekend reading.

However, as emphasised in another post, they are waiting to see how readers use the app before adding upgrades and changes.

 

We don’t pay for news, and never have

“Big Media is at the mercy of the tech giants and it’s their own fault”

That was the title of a piece which I read over the weekend by Daniel Bentley, my co-presenter on Media Mouthwash.

Daniel tackles a number of issues, and includes quotes from Jeff Jarvis and Mathew Ingrams as to why news innovation is facing a bit of a stumbling block.

But the idea that you can put the likes of Amazon and Apple in the same box as news organisations is absurd.

News organisations are obviously looking for ways to make money in the brave new world of digital journalism. I am in favour of this, because I’d like to be employed.

Conventional wisdom amongst many advocates of digital media (Twitterati sounds dated now) believe that paywalling content will kill traffic, audience and jars heavily against the nature of the web. But there’s no clear picture really.

But how about this – news organisations have never charged for content, have they?

They’ve charged advertisers for precious access to readers and charged consumers a token amount to subsidise the cost of delivering that content to them.

But consumers of the news have paid and continue to pay only for the medium of that content. The paper, the television, the internet contract, not the news.

A commenter on Daniel’s post:

“This is not true. The internet is an open platform. All it takes is for anyone, regardless of whether its a new business or a legacy player, to set up shop, understand how to do business on a platform (which it should already know how to do, having done it previously) and marry an audience to that offering. That’s the ‘secret’ behind the ‘tech giants.’ Super simple!”

Why have Amazon and Apple been successful? Because they control the medium in which we receive content. We don’t pay for news stories, but we buy iPhones, Kindles, Macbooks and desktops in their millions. Again, the medium, not the content itself.

The above comment oversimplifies the concept of ‘setting up shop‘ on the internet, and marrying an audience to that offering. News organisations have been in the production of news for hundreds of years. Now they are essentially expected to be involved in the business of retail. That’s difficult. It will take time.

However I do agree that we should be seeing more successful startups establishing themselves – I think it’s easier to do that when you’re a more nimble operation with no print legacy or retraining staff to be digitally savvy.

But again that takes time.

How many people of my parents generation (mid 50s) go to say, Slate over the Guardian, Storyful over Sky News? Established media still hold incredible sway through their recognisable brands, which is why they continue to be the biggest players in the game.

I’m far from being a stoic defender of established news organisations. Little leaps forward are being made – but all on the content side of things. That’s because it’s much easier to see how Facebook and Twitter have succeeded in terms of content delivery and mirror that by employing journalists who understand good delivery methods for news content.

The economics of this are obviously more complicated, and it’s telling that a news organisation who might seem to be in financial dire straits like the Guardian also have one of the strongest digital content offerings in the world.