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The Times they are a chargin'
"Overseas eyeballs are increasingly worthless to advertisers..."

By Kate Hanaghan

Published: Friday 15 March 2002

The Times Online will start charging its overseas users to access its site within the next three months.

A staggering 45 per cent of traffic to The Times newspaper's online offering comes from overseas visitors. The site gets 2.65 million unique users a month.

Visitors will have to login before they can continue viewing content.

However, the publication has not yet decided at what point this login process will kick in. It could, for instance be initiated after the visitor has viewed a couple of headlines. Only subscribers would then be able to gain access to additional content.

The site claims that it will be able to authenticate the geographical whereabouts of each reader with 90 per cent accuracy.

Paul Hayes, general manager of Times Newspapers Limited, said: "Overseas eyeballs are increasingly worthless to advertisers."

He's confident users will take to the subscription model because of the cost and inconvenience of buying a British newspaper overseas.

From summer next year the subscription model will be applied to UK users too.

But the paper, part of the Murdoch's News International, has not decided which parts of the site will fall under the subscription umbrella.

Hayes was able to confirm that there are "no plans" to charge UK users for generic news content.

The publication is increasingly edging towards generating revenue through charging. Hayes added: "The days of free content have gone. We want to put UK eyes behind payment too."

Hayes cited the Electronic Telegraph and Guardian Unlimited, who do not charge for content, and said he believed they are "not going to break even".

At the moment The Times only charges users for access to its crossword and its archives. But this will soon change with additional premium content, including a special World Cup package.