Irish Times to start charging for online access?

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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I got an email inviting me to participate in a survey today from the Irish Times.

"
The Irish Times is planning to introduce a digital subscription offering whereby its digital content would only be available to paying subscribers.

We would now like to show you a series of choices for Irish Times subscription packages including digital and combined print-digital offerings. We would ask you to choose your preferred option in each case. For each situation you can choose one of the subscription packages or none of the options."


upload_2015-1-14_17-4-4.png

I clicked on "none of these" and then it was followed by about 10 other screens with very slightly different prices e.g. €11.99 and €0.99 for the first four months.

But I clicked on "None of these" to all.

If they do charge, I will miss the online edition, but I will probably read Google News more.

Brendan
 
But you'l miss out on Una Mullaly's all seeing-all knowing take on everything and anything!!!
 
It has to be admitted that the present situation where the IT and others, offer excellent journalism and news free online is a fantastic boon.

I too will miss this, but charging is a non runner in todays world.

The FT can get away with it because so many people have their employers pay for a subscription, but I cannot see the IT having this work for them.
 
 
They tried it a few years ago and relented. I'd imagine they'll end up doing the same again this time. I wonder what the administration costs are going to be?

They say access to articles found via search engines will not count towards the 10 article limit. So if you spot an article you want to read after hitting your 10 article limit, just Google it...

I presume they'll be using cookies to track articles being read. Easy to clear those.
 
Leo said:
They tried it a few years ago and relented. I'd imagine they'll end up doing the same again this time.

They say access to articles found via search engines will not count towards the 10 article limit. So if you spot an article you want to read after hitting your 10 article limit, just Google it...

I presume they'll be using cookies to track articles being read. Easy to clear those.
Click to expand...

I like your style of thinking, Leo.

Marion
 
I must say I really like the Irish Times online offering and it's my go to site for Irish news. However, I rarely read any in depth articles online but instead just buy the IT on a Saturday along with a UK paper. There's usually enough in these to do me for the week outside of the "news".

Very difficult place to be for the Irish Times - trying to remain the paper of record and producing quality journalism all the time being up against Daddy Warbucks O'Brien.

I actually think the 10 free articles per week is too generous. 12 euro a month is good value in my opinion, but at a time when people are looking to save money on things it might be a difficult sell. Maybe a pay as you go option like 3 euro a month plus 50c an article would be better??

Firefly.
 
Like any site that allows a limited number of page views all you need to do is clear your cookies and carry on reading.
If you have Google Chrome just read in Incognito.
Or get a decent VPN.
I believe the Irish Times will lose much more than they gain on this and other quality newspapers such as the Telegraph have shown you can have free online access that still earns the paper money through advertising.
And the Daily Mail is a behemoth of this.
 
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