A few weeks ago I wrote ‘Newspaper paywall panic’ where I gave my thoughts on The Times’ doomed paywall scheme.  Well in the last week or so the results have started to be released and as expected they don’t make good reading, well not for Murdoch anyway!

So let’s cut to the chase, the number of people willing to pay the money regularly is 15,000, yep your eyes are not deceiving you and yes the general consensus is that this is a rather poor figure;  oh, but the bad news doesn’t stop there, the online subscription is a mere £2 a week which is pricing itself well below what is needed to counter-act the steady decline of the more expensive print product, not to mention the loss in advertising revenue they will undoubtedly be experiencing.  (Am I the only one that saw that coming, surely not!)

Okay, so there is the bad news; hang-on is there a glimmer of hope on the horizon? No! Apparently the iPad application has 12,500 subscribers paying £10 per month which in contrast to the web figure is quoted as being positive, this is due apparently to the relatively low number of iPads in circulation which interestingly contradicts Apple’s recent announcement that the iPad is now outselling its Notebook range with three million sold so far, sounds like wishful thinking by News Corp if you ask me.

I suppose I have been a little hard on The Times’ attempt to make money, I just find it hard to believe that the Industry in general still thinks it is because banner supported content doesn’t work; yet a high number of other websites and ad-delivery networks are experiencing good levels of user response with less intrusive and more importantly static support adverts.

Put simply, this is print minded executives trying to control the web which is the root of this problem; in my opinion, unless radical change takes place certain sectors of the news print industry are heading for the end.