Last month, The Times introduced a controversial new "paywall", demanding paid subscription to access its content, losing almost 90% of its online readership in the process, according to the Guardian.
This mass exodus of users could simply be a knee-jerk reaction to having the rug pulled from under them, after all - they've been spoiled with this free content for so long now, it's only natural to feel some pang of betrayal when it's snatched away.
Having asked their audience of around 150,000 users whether they would be willing to pay for content, around 10% of them said they would. The sudden drop isn't entirely unexpected; a 90% fall-off seems to be the going rate for switching from a free to subscription model, and a hit worth taking in order to generate revenue.
This time last year, News International were posting losses of around £240,000 per day for the offline publication, which puts the potential £120,000 per month of subscription revenue they expect to generate from this exercise into perspective.
I suspect that if anything brings them back in the end, it will be differentiation. Readers are very loyal to a particular newspaper because it speaks their language, shares their opinions and understands their needs as consumers.
If these readers can't find the same quality, viewpoint or voice they identify with elsewhere, they could gravitate back to their intellectual home and (begrudgingly, perhaps) pull out their credit cards.
It'll certainly be interesting to see how this pans out in the long term; How advertisers and sponsors will respond to a more selective, niche audience that they can track and build relationships with.
If they recognise and leverage the value of these relationships, Murdoch's gamble may just pay off in the end.
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