Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
48 February 2015
48 February 2015
Irish
and
Sunday
Times
seek quality
behind paywall
MEDIA PAYWALLS
‘a changin
February 2015 49
Independent Group goes for cost
cuts and integration.
By Gerard Cunningham
I
RELAND’S slow-motion media
ret reat from the open inter net is set
to accelerate in 2015, as the Irish
Times rolls out its much talked-
about subscription offer, joining
the Sunday Business Post behind a pay-
wall, though a more intriguing move this
year may come from the Sunday Times,
which is planning a seven-day Irish digit-
al-only product for readers who subscribe
to its online Sunday Irish edition.
The Irish Times has tried the pay-wall
route before, of course. But since last
abandoning the comprehensive pay-
walls in 2008, its online products have
improved immensely, with the addi-
tion of online blog sections, redesigns
of the home-page for mobiles and tab-
lets, a rethinking of how commenting is
handled, and lately its regular podcast
features, including the breakout suc-
cess of Second Captains. The new Times’
product will feature a ‘leaky’ paywall,
with browsers allowed access to a limited
number of articles each month for free.
On its website, the Irish Times claims
3.5 million unique visitors each month
(January 2013). A recent Nieman Labs
survey of US newspapers suggested
that every 1m visitors would translate
into 5,000 subscriptions. Assuming a
subscription rate of €10/month, that sug-
gests Tara street could expect revenues
of €175,000 every month, or €2.1m in a
year, from the move to pay-walls.
But there is a caveat. In most US metro
markets, there is one newspaper. In a
really big market like New York, there are
two or three. The Irish Times is putting up
a paywall in a market where the Examiner
and Independent remain free online, not
to mention TheJournal.ie and RTE.ie.
Against that kind of competition, it
may not reach the 0.5% conversion rate
typical in the American markets Nieman
measured. That said, the Irish Times is
running at roughly break-even, and has
cash reserves of €10m, so it can afford to
take some risks – at least in the short- to
medium-term.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times, pay-
walled for several years along with other
Murdoch products, has online expansion
plans. Early last year, following lengthy
complaints from Irish readers unable to
find the Irish stories in the online prod-
uct, an exclusively Irish content app
was launched. The year ended with the
news that Richard Oakley, former News
Editor with the paper would take the reins
as editor of a new and expanded digital
product, due out in April, “to form a seven
day subscription package with the Irish
edition of the Sunday Times”.
Oakley and the Sunday Times will, in
effect, have to invent their new product
from scratch. The Irish staff working on
the Sunday paper will be able to do some
reporting, but to
expand from one to
seven days the out-
let will have to rely
on freelances and
new hires. The pros-
pect of new opening
is in itself a novelty,
with most news-
papers more likely
to announce lay-
offs. And although
it seems that in
line with Rupert
Murdoch’s other
online offerings,
the digital edition’s
paywall will not by
“leaky”, there will
be an introductory
offer price.
Meanwhile, the latest editorial changes
at Independent House, with the appoint-
ments of Fionnan Sheahan and Cormac
Bourke as editors of the daily and Sunday
titles, were quickly followed by news of
further lay-offs. Behind the euphemisms
of “integration” and “future-proofing”, a
further 30 job losses were announced.
For every newspaper faced with declin-
ing physical sales, there are two ways
ahead. The Independent seems set on the
cost-cutting route, with mantras of “inte-
gration”, “more with less”, and an online
product dead-set on aping the Daily Mail
model of click-baiting its readers.
The two Times are looking at new rev-
enue streams from paying subscribers.
They will attract fewer readers behind
their paywalls, but the gamble is that
those readers they do attract will be more
valuable.
Meanwhile the Irish Examiner, mori-
bund after one resurrection, is running
out of readers, even as it produces some
of the best investigative journalism in
Ireland. The reboot following the 2013
receivership of Thomas Crosbie Holdings
did improve its balance sheet debt posi-
tion, but it finds itself retreating back to
its Munster roots.
“De Paper” is much more a regional
than a national force, but that is not
entirely a bad thing, and it does com-
mand an impressive market share in its
home province. •
The
Irish
Times
is
running
at roughly
breakeven,
and has cash
reserves of
€10m, so it
can afford to
take some
risks
“
