Just removed the Times online from my bookmarks.

[muttleymacclad]

Hope this is appropriate here as it is the beginning of quite a big move in the mass media.

Just went into the Times online site today (as i do every morning) and they have now shifted over to their paid for content. You can now only access the front page, anything else you pay a subscription.

As a result i've removed the bookmark now, i'll find my news elsewhere.

In a professional capacity, perhaps i should be happy, as i own a newsagents and the free press eg metro, take a huge chunk of my potential sales.

Now i know the FT and Wall St Journal have been doing this for some time but it'll be interesting to see if other media groups follow suit and if Newscorp move sites such as Sky news to pay per view.

Which way will win out? Murdoch has taken a big gamble here.

mml

[Mickey]

there is alot of free news out there so why bother paying for it?

[ZX7R]

Do you still have to put up with advertising on the The Times website even if you pay for it at the moment? If you do, well that takes the pi$$

[Freddy]

Pointless vote given the user base here at DF.

[CzarJunkie]

If we want quality journalism we should be prepared to pay for it, otherwise it'll disappear and we'll be poorer as a society as a result. Having said that, I wouldn't subscribe to The Times, but that's only a personal preference.

[koola2]

In a professional capacity, perhaps i should be happy, as i own a newsagents and the free press eg metro, take a huge chunk of my potential sales.

I did notice a newsagent near me had a poster out saying they would save you the Standard for 20p. Probably for the people to lazy for the five minute walk to the station.

[lithho]

cant see anybody paying to read news on the net, so many free sites out there, seems a silly risk to take at mo when most are cutting back, paying for news feeds hardly seems top of anybodys lists

[JonEp]

I did notice a newsagent near me had a poster out saying they would save you the Standard for 20p. Probably for the people to lazy for the five minute walk to the station.

Evening Standard - Impossible to find after 6pm even in the city.

[Greyfox]

there is alot of free news out there so why bother paying for it?

I actually want to read in depth, quality written journalism. Not some shit in the sun.

[OrangeJuicey]

Well you have to think about it like this. The newspapers in the UK are loosing money through giving away all their content online. As long as the BBC is giving away content they are never going to win subscribers so its pointless trying to make people pay for their news. The BBC are not going to start charging since its Government run and is paid for by the tax payer.

As long as there are free news sites out there then they can't really start charging unless their content is some how superior to that that's been given away for free.

[Over Carl]

I'm not gonna pay to be brainwashed by anyone.

[ss30]

I have never bought a news paper.

[TwoPlAnKs]

Better news is still free. If all the broadsheets started charging, then people would begin to pay for their favourites again perhaps. I get my actual news from the BBC and get a lot of opinion and such from blogs and twitter etc. but broadsheets and quality journalism have a real place to play in all that. I seriously doubt we'd let them all die, but we would let the Times die on its own I think.

[CzarJunkie]

I'm not gonna pay to be brainwashed by anyone.

So where will you get your news? Who will you trust to deliver the news? Will you expect journalists to risk their lives for free during conflicts just so you don't have to pay for it?

Where do the free publications and bloggers get their content? If news organisations go out of business who will investigate wrong doers and expose the truth?

Think long and hard about your objections to paying for news. As a society we need journalists from across the social and political spectrum in order to keep organisations and governments honest.

[Mickey]

I actually want to read in depth, quality written journalism. Not some shit in the sun.

Look numbnutz, did i mention THE Sun. No i did not

Spoiler:

I was refering to The Metro

[CzarJunkie]

Better news is still free.

Rubbish. Nothing is free. The BBC depend on the license fee. If we all assumed the best news was free we'd be left with a world of state owned news organisations and that would be a sad state of affairs.

[TwoPlAnKs]

Rubbish. Nothing is free. The BBC depend on the license fee. If we all assumed the best news was free we'd be left with a world of state owned news organisations and that would be a sad state of affairs.

I don't pay to use a massive array of news websites. It might not be free really; it might be funded by people paying licenses, it might be funded by people buying paper copies, it might be funded by people clicking adverts, but it's free to me.

People will only pay for The Times if all of the others stop offering what they do for free, hence why Murdoch chose Cameron as our prime minister to cut the BBC's funding. He is hoping others will follow him too, and I for one suspect they won't.

It must be possible to pay war correspondents and other reporters through means other than charging monthly fees. All newspapers prior to this date have managed it. If they can't make enough from online advertising, they need to seriously up their game before charging to use a website. Like you, I wouldn't subscribe to the Times, but I like to read perhaps one article every few months. Their pricing structure needs to support this on the internet, because sites like DF and Twitter and their users thrive on sending around news articles to each other. It would be a sad state of affairs if people were posting news on here and half the members couldn't view it because they subscribe to a different newspaper.

I just think The Times is going about it all wrong - whilst there is free competition still there, their current model will not work. That competition not being genuinely free is irrelevant, it's free to access to those who want to.

[CzarJunkie]

It must be possible to pay war correspondents and other reporters through means other than charging monthly fees. All newspapers prior to this date have managed it.

Yes, but we're talking about the death of the physical paper. This is about a future of online content. If media organisations aren't getting the revenue from the face value of their product, how are they going to survive?

[muttleymacclad]

Murdoch has always been at the forefront of the media game regardless of whether you like his methods, politics or publications.

It was Murdoch that broke the union's hold on the press at Wapping and thus revolutionised the way papers were published and distributed. Sky news has revolutionised live news in the UK. Introducing the London Paper (free evening daily) killed the 50p Evening Standard, subsequently the London Paper and London Lite have closed, and The Standard is now a freebie.

My feeling is a that lot of the mainstream quality press will follow suit pretty soon. The more digitally mobile we become, the more financially "squeezable" we become.

MML

[CzarJunkie]

Sky news has revolutionised live news in the UK.

How? I can only assume you mean the blatant bias?