Hitwise UK Reports The Times Traffic Loss from Paywall is "Less That Expected"
Okay, so maybe Rupert Murdoch will get the last laugh. According to the headline of today’s post by Robin Goad, the Research Director at Hitwise UK, “Times Paywall traffic loss less than expected.”
Less than expected?
I expected the market share for The Times of London would go down after its controversial move to take their content behind a paywall and charge online consumers to read their content. And according to Hitwise UK, it has.
“In the weeks before the paywall went up, www.thetimes.co.uk had an average market share of 4.29% in the News and Media – Print category. By the week ending 10 July 2010, The Times‘ market share online had dropped to 1.43%, just 33% of where it had been five weeks previously,” reports Goad.
“The latest data for the week ending 17 July 2010 shows that The Times‘ market share has dropped off further still to 1.37% of the News and Media – Print category,” he adds.
Hmmm. Doesn’t look like a good trend to me.
But apparently the rate of decline is slowing. And I guess that’s better than having the rate of decline continuing its death spiral.
But when the introductory offer of “£1 for the first 30 days” expires, will readers of The Times search for their news content from other providers? Stay tuned. This story still has “legs.”