The Times and Sunday Times websites to charge from June

[EldonAve]

£1 a day

The Sun & NOTW to follow

Will you pay to read the news online?

"They are littered with adverts so surely the revenue from that is huge."

No it's not huge.

The revenue for in print advertising still dwarves that for online newspaper advertising. Both types are also in decline.

I would be willing to pay a set price for a website that gave me access to several newspapers, say for £5 a month - Times, DM (for the gossip), Guardian, Economist...

So similar to the Sky TV packages, you would chose your package and pay a monthly charge.

This really splits the readers though, into political camps. I sometimes dip into the Guardian to read a different take on a story I have read in the Times (or vice versa), which means that I have a more balanced and informed view of an issue.

But the cost of online compared to produced print is much less.

they're still producing the print version. badgerpaw knows what she's talking about.

I am surprised more newspapers have not done this. I subscribe to the Financial Times and get free access to their website.

The webste is an adjunct to the print version and is a good tie in to attract subscriptions. I dont think it would work if they tried to charge for the website as a stand alone offering though.

MmeLindt, that's a brilliant idea, murdoch will be all over it in seconds!

Yesterday I would have like a line up of papers in red to blue order. I was chuckling at the range of budget headlines, Darling was everything from the devil himself to the second coming depending which paper you looked at.

I do not pay for BBC, and as most site visitors to BBc are abroad, neither do they.
I appreciate print is in massive decline, and you have to pay staff. However the pricepoint seems wrong. I would pay £5pcm for MN subscription- my usage is heavy value for money. I wouldn't pay £5pcm for each and every newspaper when I just want to read 1 or 2 columnists' opinions.

Not everything can be free. All these websites are not just staffed by poncey journalists, you know. What about all the tech people? I don't think they'd work out of the kindness of their hearts.

Actually I did read somewhere that someone (vague enough?!) had predicted that 'attractive' jobs such as journalism and advertising might not be paid at all in the future. They could get enough people with means of their own who would do it for nothing. And in fact there would be nothing with which to pay them if all content on the web was free.

I hardly read the other physical newspapers now apart from FT. I get everything I need from blogs, forums and TV news.

The papers are commercial enterprises that have to make money in order to exist. I already pay £3.29 a week for access to the financial times and bought the Guardian app for my phone. Quality journalism has a value and is worth paying for IMO.

Re. online ad revenue - I think a lot of the ad money (such as it is - has dropped a lot) has gone to Google for its Adwords service. Online ad revenue for newspapers and other sites is much harder to come by I think.

No, I will not be paying.

I will just watch the news instead.

I wouldn't pay £2 a week for unlimited access because a lot of it is stuff I don't want to read - gardening, football. I'd pay if they did it a different way eg you could load an account, like a Paypal account or pay-as-you-go phone with money and then get charged per article eg 1p per click or something.

As someone else said it would also be good to have a portal to access all the papers through a pay-per-click. (Are you reading, business managers of the Guardian, Times etc? Hope so.) This would work a bit like the Radio Times now lists all TV content (remember the old days when it only used to list BBC?)

I would pay, possibly not for the times but I would pay for online content.

This is the way that all publishers are going to go, HAVE to go, brave of Times to be the first for non specialist content. It's really the only option if we want to continue having these news providers, if we're not willing to pay they won't be able to provide the service.

They will all follow suit, for sure.

They've all been waiting for NI to do it.

I'd happily pay for a Times App for my phone (already have paid for a Guardian one) so this really is not much different.

The price will come down for sure.

I never read the Times in the week, and it is part of my Saturday ritual to buy the papers on Saturday and Sunday - so this will not bother me.

If they charged for the Daily Mail website I would be screwed - I use that a lot for the sheer laughter value.

I don't mind in principle paying for websites, but a £1 a day is too expensive by far. About 30 - 50p seems better.

But in reality I would just use free sites instead.

And I like the physicality of the papers at the weekend. I read Style magazine and laugh at Natalie Hartley whilst in the bath, couldn;t do that with the online version.

Plus, the Times website is craply designed imo. Not that I know bugger all about these things. However it seems really unwieldy to me.

Agree with the person who says you buy a paper for its voice. I buy ST, Telegraph (sometimes), Mail on Sunday, Mirror and NOTW at the weekend, they all have distint (and sometimes disturbed) personalities.

I agree that the other papers were just waiting for NI to make the move. They will all follow suit. It will then depend on how they structure their payment plans to which websites I continue to use.

They have to make money somewhere.

I was going to say "no, screw them. They can't even write their own articles, just lift it from MN", but then someone mentioned Celebrity Watch and I am truly torn. I love Celebrity Watch; it makes my week.

I like MmeLindt's suggestion. I'd pay for that.

Maybe a better way to raise money would be to charge people to comment on articles, and then just publish lots of OUTRAGEOUS and CONTROVERSIAL articles about killing puppies or something every day. People will definitely pay then.

I think we should all set up a direct debit of £x per year direct to Caitlin Moran, and get her to just come on here and write 2 threads a day.

LOL Getorf. I loved her take on the Oscar Husband Jinx today.

It's a tricky one.
I've been a commited Times reader since I first got all pretentious intellectual in my teens and wanted my parents to notice that I would not read the Daily Mail like they did. The website is a good one, and it's nice and easy to read on my iphone in childcare gaps.

However, part of me is a bit pleased because I really like having a newspaper to read. I can pretend to be all huffy and refuse to subscribe online, knowing that I now have an excuse to buy proper papers. I'm a loon, I know, but it's the same reason why I will never buy an e-reader...words on a screen are never the same as having the paperin your hands.

Plus, I have a two year old. Sheets of newspaper are ALWAYS handy to have around.

Agrred GetOrf.I was laughing out loud today (rather embarassingly, as I was at work) on the section about the Beckham's baby plans, particularly this bit "In the wake of David Beckham?s Achilles tendon rupturing, the Beckhams are, according to reports in OK!, planning to have another child. Because this is so often what happens. When your leg stops working, you start using your penis instead. Like God closing a door, but opening a window. "

Yes, I am a Times reader and would consider it (if I had time to read it anymore! - maybe when I go back to work hehe). Why should they provide it for free? All I would say is that there always tends to be a lot more in the actual paper than appears on-line, so I wonder if they will make the on-line version more comprehensive now or whether it will still differ.

yes, you can read news on BBC for "free", but we can't just rely on one corporation to provide us with news, especially not an effectively government run one at that, we may as well be living in North Korea.