The Times set to charge for online content

First published 16.7.2001

Times Newspapers is ditching free access to its website - making it the first UK paper to attempt to charge for content.

silicon.com has learned The Times and The Sunday Times will become part-subscription sites, in an attempt to claw back News International's new media investment.

The first step in the project, a £10 yearly fee for access to The Times crossword, will launch in the next couple of weeks. Katie Vanneck, publisher of The Times Online, believes the move will be a success. "It's a very strong brand and a unique piece of content," she said.

The Times' search for a way to charge online readers has been hampered by the lack of suitable payment systems on the market. The paper plans to launch more subscription services once a technology partner is in place.

News International is keen to wrest back control of its intellectual property in a market it sees as out of control. The group's owner, Rupert Murdoch, has been publicly sceptical about the web's ability to drive revenue for his titles.

However, according to Vanneck, the publisher is committed to the online market. "Everyone has been through a crisis, but we're in a much healthier position than our rivals. We haven't invested as much or promised as much, but at the same time we haven't taken our eye off the bottom line," she said.

Other mainstream publishers will watch the experiment with interest. The Financial Times, The Guardian and Reuters have all recently dipped their toes into the subscription waters, but have shied away from charging for main news content, sticking to additional 'value-add' services like SMS.

Vanneck admits the move will lose some of the site's estimated one million users, but believes valued readers will stay. "People who come to us just for news coverage will go somewhere else, I have no doubt about that. But a lot of our users are highly loyal to The Times brand."

Some content on the site will remain free-of-charge in an effort to soften the blow. The group has not yet decided whether to charge daily, weekly or yearly for subscription access.

The move is a high-risk strategy. Rebecca Ulph, analyst at Forrester Research, believes there are opportunities to be taken by publishers but in the short term readers may react badly.

"It's still very early days to be charging the consumer. Successful subscription sites like The Economist and The Wall Street Journal are paid for mainly by businesses," she said.