>>>>>>>Is now going or has gone subscription only.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>www.thetimes.co.uk now takes you to a registration page.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I wonder how many of the other papers will follow suit.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>None in their right mind I would have thought.
>>>>>>For starters, when was the last time you had to sign a six page agreement before buying a newspaper ?
>>>>>
>>>>>I wouldn't but it will be interesting to see if murdoch is big enough to change the market. In the longer term maybe it will work esp with more people being able to read it while travelling on their phones etc. A downloaded iphone app could include a prepaid subscription element with renewals coming off you phone bill. Exactly the sort of thing people don't cancel due to inertia.
>>>>
>>>>I see the pricing for a full subscription is £2/week - that doesn't sound too bad. I don't suppose they'll get too many takers at a £1/day though. Considering that the retailer get 25% and distribution costs can be up to 40% they'll be making a lot more (or should that be losing a lot less) from online sales at a quid.
>>>>
>>>>I guess that, if I wanted to read it on a regular basis, I'd go for the £2/week. But the true cost to me of buying one every day of the week would probably be at least £30 - given that it's a 8 mile round trip to the nearest shop......
>>>>
>>>>Certainly the concept of chopping down a load of trees and dragging them round the country on a daily basis is beginning to look a bit unneccessary.
>>>>
>>>>Be interesting to see what happens with the Indie though ?
>>>
>>>When paid subscription was tried here a couple of years ago, the readers got three choices.
>>>Choice #1 was shortened stories and a lot of ads for free
>>>Choice #2 was full stories with ads if you paid a small price
>>>Choice #3 was full stories without any ads if you paid a higher price.
>>>The big problem was that all who paid, chose #3, and without ads the paper did not get enough money. And since fewer people saw the ads, the advertisers stopped buying ads.
>>
>>The success or otherwise of that particular model might depend on the relative pricing of the options?
>>But if, as Nick suggests, reading newspapers online becomes more convenient and is still free then eventually the *only* source of income will be from advertising. I'm far from convinced that leads to better quality reporting.
>>
>>On the subject of advertising in online editions: It would be far more acceptable, at least to me, if they stuck to presenting the adverts in the same way as they would in a hardcopy edition and refrained from distracting animation/ pop-ups / videos etc. (ie don't try to turn a newspaper into a TV station just because you can.....)
>>
>>>I don't see why Murdoch's plan will end differently.
>>Certainly not if the newspapers that could be seen as competitors remain free. If the Grauniad and Indie followed suit it might be interesting .......
>
>Yes
>
>I don't like newspaper sites that have audio and video reports especially when they don't give you a text alternative. Also rollover ads are a real nuisance when they expand over the page. Spend ages trying to navigate the mouse around them.

I've still got the link to the Independents piece on the death row story up. That's got a couple of comparatively mild rolling ad's on the right - but they still cause that peripheral vision type of distraction....