The Sun takes the paywall plunge

THE SUN newspaper took a momentous step yesterday by joining its Murdoch stablemates, the Times and the Sunday Times, and putting its online content behind a paywall.

Subscribers will have to pay £2 per week for access to Sun+, the website version of Britain's biggest selling paper.

But, while the stats have shown for years that the Sun has been a success off the news stands, it has begun its online revolution from a rather low base.

Recent figures put the pre-paywall Sun website readers on 1.8million unique browsers per day. This compares poorly to the market leader, the still-free Mail Online of the Daily Mail, which attracts an average of 8.1million visitors.

Meanwhile, the Guardian - with 4.8millions daily users - comes next, ahead of the Daily Telegraph, with 2.7million.

As direct tabloid rivals, though, it will be the increase in the Daily Mirror's online traffic which would have been of most concern to the Sun.

Even before the paywall was erected, the Mirror had made a march on the Sun - and, yesterday, it cleverly used the front page of its website to declare "the best things in life are free".

So what does the Sun have to offer to tempt subscribers?

Easily the biggest booty which has been publicised is the newspaper's £30m+ investment in Premier League highlights.

It is an apparently a good enough move that media commentator Steve Hewlett "can see [it] working" - but I remain a lot more sceptical.

For a start, the BBC's Match of the Day will show exactly the same goals a little later but on a free-to-air basis.

And, for anyone out on the town on a Saturday night or too hungover to watch the Sunday morning repeat, MotD will even be on iPlayer for the first time in this coming season.

As for the Sun's other potential unique selling points... Want breaking news? Then, look no further than the BBC or Sky websites.

Desiring a right-wing rant against immigrants or welfare 'scroungers'? Try the Mail Online, if you must. There, you will also find enough vacuous celeb gossip to preclude the need for the Sun.

Finally, charging for Page 3 tits - on the internet of all places - just sounds totally ludicrous.

Of course, the Sun - and its new editor David Dinsmore - could prove me wrong - and, indeed, the whole journalism industry remains optimistic that some sort of paywall scheme could work.

Already, though, some of the Sun's biggest-name retail advertisers, such as Tesco, Currys and Marks & Spencers, are holding fire on running activity on the Sun+ - at least until it can prove that it has sustained evidence that it is reaching its ambitious subscriber targets.

The Sun has responded by launching an ad campaign of its own, but the £10m spent there just adds to the spiralling costs which will need to be recouped by getting readers on board.

Estimates suggest the Sun will need to attract more than 250,000 subscribers to cover the loss of online advertising and make back its outlay on the digital Premier League football.

It will do well to get anywhere near that. The website of Rupert Murdoch's other daily News UK title, the Times, went behind a paywall in July 2010 and is ailing badly, reaching fewer readers now than the Independent and the London Evening Standard.

The crux of the matter seems to be that, unlike those of other major newspapers, the News UK websites do not give away any content for free.

By contrast, in March, the Telegraph began employing a metered paywall which allows a limit of 20 free articles before those wanting more are invited to take out a free trial subscription, and then a paid one, from a cost of £2 a week.

This allows casual consumers of the Telegraph, like myself, to pass by the website every now and then, with more ardent readers having to subscribe.

So far, the tactic has been pretty successful with no discernible downturn in traffic, and perhaps a metered paywall is the way forward for newspapers looking to make money from its online content.

All the while, the Sun - and the Times - are having to rely entirely on the loyalty and goodwill of their readers. Good luck to them with that.

The boy in the bubble

THE ALMOST continual media coverage of the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's first child has finally started to settle down in the wake of some actual news happening.

By contrast, on Monday, it was relentless and largely unwatchable.

From the breakfast announcement that Kate had gone into labour and been taken to the private Lindo wing of St Mary's hospital in London - to the moment, 10 hours later, that she had popped out an 8lb 6oz sprog - the likes of the BBC and Sky provided all-day coverage of... nothing much.

That much was confirmed by the brilliantly frank BBC royal correspondent Simon McCoy, who was forced to wait outside the hospital to report on any news.

He admitted on air: "Plenty more to come from here, of course - none of it news because that will come from Buckingham Palace but that won't stop us."

Meanwhile, this was - we were told by Prime Minister David Cameron - "a very exciting occasion and the whole country is excited". 

And it was certainly afforded the sort of breathless coverage - both at home and, in fairness, elsewhere around the world - which befits a landmark event.

Surely, though, there was far too much fuss over what was - on a basic level - a woman in childbirth, something which has been happening for thousands of years.

Private Eye perhaps best summed up the arrival of the third-in-line to the throne on the front page of its latest edition, which states simply in large letters - "WOMAN HAS BABY" - adding in tiny print at the bottom, "INSIDE: Some other stuff".

Of course, for the likes of the Sun and the Daily Mail, baby George Alexander Louis was gold dust in the generally quiet summer season.

Top cringe marks must go to the Sun for taking the unprecedented step of changing its masthead for the day to 'The Son'.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail website benefited from its biggest ever audience - 10.5m unique users, and its print edition was unsurprisingly a "Royal Baby Souvenir Special".

Amusingly, though, in the midst of the copious amounts of print, the Mail had the nerve to criticise the BBC for its over-the-top coverage. Incredible.

At least those looking for an alternative view would have found some job with the Mirror and the mini version of the Independent.

The Mirror, though joining in the gushing of the new royal in its editorial, gave room to republican commentator Brian Reade - while, rather pointedly, 'The I' led with the headline: "Born to Rule".

Media Guardian commentator Roy Greenslade has claimed that the media was simply "giving people what they want" - and it is true that the baby has arrived at a time when the royal family is riding a wave of popularity.

An Ipsos Mori poll last week showed 77% of Britons were in favour of remaining a monarchy over a republic, close to its best-ever level of support.

However, another poll, by Yougov, found that only 14% of UK adults were "very interested" and 32% were "somewhat interested" in the royal baby.

As you may have guessed from the tone of this post, I fell into neither of those groups - though I should point out that this does not necessarily make me a strident republican either. It really was just too much coverage for something which is relatively insignificant to me.

Indeed, I have watched and read less news this week than in a long time but I will always remember it as a few days that Britain went baby bonkers.

And there has not even been the Sunday features or the ITV documentaries yet...

Murdoch rides to the Sun's rescue

RUPERT MURDOCH arrived in London yesterday to launch a new Sunday tabloid and reassure staff on the Sun of their jobs.

The Australian-born proprietor of News International was in Wapping to make his big announcement and meet disconcerted staff on the Sun.

Earlier this week, five senior journalists from the paper were arrested on suspicion of bribing police and public officials as part of Operation Elveden, the investigation by Scotland Yard into newspaper corruption.

Sun reporters have also become increasingly worried that an internal News Corp investigations unit, the management and standards committee (MSC), has handed over the names of confidential sources to the police.

And so, it was against an atmosphere described as "anxious and angry" that Mr Murdoch sent an email in an attempt to heal some wounds.

He wrote: "We will build on the Sun's proud heritage by launching the Sun on Sunday very soon... We're doing everything we can to assist those who are arrested.

"All suspensions are hereby lifted until or whether charged, and they are welcome to return to work."

The reaction of the staff in Wapping to the news was positive, though this was perhaps out of relief more than anything.

A News International journalist is even reported to have said: "This is a proper fightback. Even if there are other arrests, this is a 'fuck you, here we are, we are carrying on despite everything.'"

However, others were less convinced by Mr Murdoch's statement.

Another reporter said: "This changes nothing. [There is still] a huge amount of concern across all three titles about protection of sources.

"Everyone is pleased that the suspensions have been lifted, but this is the language of the MSC. It makes no difference."

Overall, though, there is no doubt that most of the staff on the Sun will have gained a much-needed morale boost from the arrival of Mr Murdoch.

If nothing else, the upcoming launch of the Sun on Sunday shows that he is still committed to the UK newspaper industry... for now.

Nevertheless, there remain doubts over whether the whole of the Murdoch empire, namely News Corporation, will sail the same course - especially once Rupert's son, James, gains more control.

James Murdoch has made little secret of the fact that he is no fan of the printed press and it was not a surprise that he did not accompany his father on this trip.

He considers the UK newspapers to have caused him more problems than they are worth and, as a pragmatist and money man, he also thinks of them as a dying business.

The Times and the Sunday Times are loss-making while the Sun threatens to be caught in a similar mire to the one which accounted for the News of the World last July.

Of course, it has since emerged that claims of News of the World journalists deleting the voice messages on Milly Dowler's mobile phone was, on the balance of the available evidence, probably untrue.

But the very act of illegally hacking the phone of a murdered young girl, and others, was understandably enough to turn the collective stomach of the general public.

If the Sun journalists are also found guilty in this new crisis, it appears that Mr Murdoch will have short shrift for anyone involved.

For, he also wrote: "We will obey the law. Illegal activity simply cannot and will not be tolerated at any of our publications."

That appears to give Mr Murdoch, or at least his son James, a get-out clause from his apparent advances to the UK newspaper industry.

Indeed, the current BBC political presenter and former Sunday Times editor, Andrew Neil, warned: "Essentially, [Mr Murdoch] is between a rock and a hard place and he is playing for time.

"This will last until the next 12 arrests of Sun journalists or until he is forced to come down on one side.

"I am confident that the side he will come down on will be News Corporation in America. That is a multi-billion dollar business and News International is just a multi-million dollar business."

So, while on the surface, it appears Mr Murdoch may have flown in to save the Sun, this could yet be a relatively short-term fling.

That is not to say that the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times will go the same way as the News of the World.

But, if it does all go wrong - and if James Murdoch gains any sort of control - none of the newspapers would get anywhere near as much attention from News International as they are right now.

Paying for the news

JOHNSTON Press has taken the plunge.

The local newspaper group, which has more than 200 titles in the UK, will ask readers of the Northumberland Gazette, Whitby Gazette and Southern Reporter to pay for their online content.

Subscribers can pay £5 for full access during the three-month trial, the equivalent of 40 pence per day.

Another three of the group's papers, the Carrick Gazette, Worksop Guardian, and Ripley and Heanor News, are undergoing a separate trial.

Bizarrely, the stories on their websites have just an introductory paragraph before readers are diverted to the print edition for the full account.

The outcome of the trials is sure to be followed closely by industry chiefs eager to learn if they can make money from their websites.

Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp, is among the interested parties ahead of his plan to charge for the online versions of The Sun and The Times from April next year.

A major problem for the papers is the prevalence of the BBC's 'free' website.

The Beeb is unlikely to justify charging for its content given that the public already shell out £142.50 a year for the licence fee.

While the BBC's local news pages are patchy at best, its coverage of a story of national prominence would dwarf the output of anything from a local newspaper in terms of quantity and quality.

Herein lies the true problem. Good local journalists with the ability to produce a standard to rival the BBC are being made redundant almost every week.

Others, like me, cannot even get a look in. The remaining reporters work ever-increasing hours trying to fill the same number of pages as previously.

The sad truth is that few local papers have a website worth charging for.

Most of the sites which I have seen upload the story from the print edition without any additional analysis or comment.

But that is not the fault of the under pressure news desk staff.

It is the short-sighted company chiefs just looking to make their next buck who are really to blame for the slow death of a once-proud industry.

Forty years of The Sun

THE SUN celebrated forty years as a tabloid today in typically brash style with pull-outs, celebrity interviews and prime-time television advertisements.

It has a chequered history, to say the least, but remains Britain's most popular daily with just under three million sales and a readership of almost eight million.

The tabloid version of the paper was actually pre-dated by a broadsheet which had replaced the loss-making Daily Herald in 1964.

The broadsheet continued to lose circulation and money which led to owners International Press Corporation putting it up for sale.

Enter Rupert Murdoch. He had recently acquired the News Of The World and was looking to add a daily as a stable mate.

The Daily Herald had been a Labour-supporting newspaper and Murdoch vowed to retain its political allegiance, appointing socialist Larry Lamb as its first editor.

But that all changed in the late 1970s when the James Callaghan government stumbled from one crisis to the next.

The Sun switched sides in the run-up to the 1979 election and left its readers in no doubt that it thought they should do the same.

'Vote Tory This Time' was its unequivocal headline and the public duly did so, giving Margaret Thatcher a landslide election win.

Kelvin McKenzie became editor in 1981 and remained loyal to the Conservatives throughout Mrs Thatcher's premiership in the 1980s.

Notably, it supported the government during the Miners' Strike and, later in the decade, the introduction of the poll tax which would effectively bring to an end the Thatcher era.

The 1980s would also feature a circulation war between The Sun and The Daily Mirror with price cuts and an emphasis on brash headlines.

The battle with The Daily Mirror explains, partly at least, why The Sun became more jingoistic than previously.

On the sinking of Argentine gunboat Belgrano during the Falklands War, 'Gotcha' was the front-page headline.

Labour leaders Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock were lampooned mercilessly alongside other figures on the Left of British politics.

Mr Foot was judged as being too old before the 1983 election but The Sun supported the re-election of conservative Ronald Reagan to the US Presidency a year later.

This was despite the fact that President Reagan was two years older than Mr Foot.

During the Miners' Strike, The Sun prepared a front-page with a photograph which made Trade Union leader Arthur Scargill look like he was doing Nazi salute.

The printers, in disgust, refused to publish it. But they would be the next victims when Murdoch moved the paper to Wapping and nearly all of them lost their jobs.

On the back pages, England football manager Bobby Robson also suffered as a result of the tabloid war with false allegations about his private life.

After a 0-0 draw with Saudi Arabia in the build-up to World Cup 1990, the paper pleaded, 'In The Name Of Allah, Go!' Robson would lead England to the semi-finals.

His successor Graham Taylor got an even worse press as an ageing England team struggled at the Euro 92 finals and failed to qualify for World Cup 1994.

After failing to beat Sweden in 1992, Taylor was branded a 'turnip'. His face was super-imposed on a picture of a turnip on account he could not beat the Swedes, a pun on the other root vegetable.

It was an image which stuck in the mind of the public and, undoubtedly, it dealt a blow to Taylor's reputation for the rest of his time in charge.

But McKenzie's most shameful football moment came in 1989 when, under the headline 'The Truth', The Sun reported on the tragic events at Hillsborough Stadium.

It blamed Liverpool fans for causing a crush which killed 92 people and accused the fans of robbing the victims and preventing them from receiving help even though the opposite was true.

The Sun's sales figures on Liverpool have never recovered since, even when the paper hit its record high circulation in November 1995 of 4.8 million copies.

The birth of the Internet and 24-hour news broadcasts put an end to those kinds of figures. But The Sun remains powerful in political circles.

After its switch in 1979 and the successful prediction in 1992 that John Major would gain an unlikely election victory, The Sun has always liked to look as if it is backing a winner.

In the run up to the 1997 election, New Labour director of communication Alastair Campbell held meetings with Murdoch to ensure Tony Blair would get the paper's endorsement.

Like Mrs Thatcher 18 years before him, Mr Blair was elected by a landslide.

Mr Blair retained The Sun's support throughout his premiership as he disgruntled many in his party faithful by mainly pursuing Thatcherite policies such as privatisation.

More recently, of course, The Sun has returned to supporting the Conservatives at the next election with the front-page headline 'Labour's Lost It'.

This is a recognition that Mr Blair's replacement Gordon Brown is looking as beleaguered a figure as Mr Major in 1997 and The Sun dare not risk supporting him.

Their move is still a risk - there are months until election day and polls suggest that the public remain somewhat sceptical of David Cameron's Conservatives.

A recent attempt by The Sun to smear Mr Brown's sincerity towards the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan also back-fired.

The story came about after Mr Brown wrote an untidy letter with several spelling mistakes to a recently bereaved family of a soldier.

But most people have felt it unreasonable to criticise the PM for his poor handwriting on account of his poor eyesight and indeed praised him for his sincerity in writing to each of the bereaved soldiers' families personally.

So... political flip-flopping, jingoism, fabrication, smears. How does The Sun remain so popular?

Well, I think personally that it remains an entertaining read. In particular, it has continued its tradition of memorable headlines in recent years.

'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Korea' when North Korea tested a nuclear weapon and 'Super Cally Go Ballistic, Celtic are Atrocious' when Inverness beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup stick out.

Also, many of its mainly male readership will buy the paper for its extensive football coverage, and some others just to ogle at Page 3, rather than its right-wing political coverage.

Its status as Britain's biggest-selling daily is in some ways self-fulfilling as PR firms flock to get their celebrity client an interview or their book serialised.

This has become particularly evident since the advent and subsequent popularity of telly talent contest such as the X Factor and Britain's Got Talent.

To its credit, The Sun provides unmatched offers to its readers with the most famous being the annual £9.50 holiday giveaways.

Campaigns such as the Help For Heroes charity and the long-running Free Books for Schools also hit a public note.

Finally, its website is now much-improved from the untidy effort with which it began.

Figures showing that there were 22,994,391 unique users in the month of September are a testament to its improvement.

That puts it in fourth place in the increasingly important battle for online readership, behind The Mail, The Guardian and The Telegraph.

Now, to see if Murdoch's next move will pay off - a plan to charge readers a fee for reading online news on News International websites.

The surprising result of a study by the Boston Consulting Group shows that apparently 48% of the public would be willing to pay.

But I remain sceptical that The Sun, or indeed The Times, is popular enough for that.

Surely, readers would just go elsewhere.

Newspapers in catch 22 over online content

A dire warning for newspapers turning to an online-only output to ease their financial worries has been made by an academic study.

But it’s another of the report’s findings which should make newspaper bosses even more wary.

The Media Guardian website today reported the findings of a study by researchers at City University in London, showing revenues actually fell faster than costs after the changes were implemented.

The study was based upon Finnish newspaper Taloussanomat, which went online-only in December 2007 after suffering severe losses on its print version.

Since the change, the newspaper’s costs have fallen by 50%, but revenue dropped by 75% and the move has pushed Taloussanomat even closer to the edge.

Neil Thurman, a senior lecturer in electronic publishing at City, was one of the authors of the study.

He said: “Only if your income is 31% or more lower than your costs, based on this case at least, would you be better off going online-only."

Various reasons are given as to why the move has not had any benefits.

The report suggests that a lack of a print version meant the website was not promoted elsewhere.

And the main reason given by the researchers was that the internet is an altogether different beast to a newspaper as it is normally skimmed over in a couple of minutes.

But, while these are both acceptable arguments – and it is true that the internet has proven to be notoriously difficult for newspapers to monetise – the authors seem to have skimmed over the major point themselves.

The report states clearly that the newspaper cut their newsroom staff and the quality of the content suffered.

Surely this was a bigger factor in explaining the falling readership and revenues.

After all, if in any other walk of life, the quality of a product reduced, most people would have second thoughts over whether to read/use/watch/eat/drink it again.

And while just Maxim and The Ecologist magazines in Britain have gone down the online-only route (so far), redundancies are being announced on an almost daily basis.

It is all well and good that newspaper bosses want to preserve the future of their publication.

And this post is not in denial about the great benefits which newspapers across the country have enjoyed through their websites.

But remind me again of that phrase about paying peanuts...