Blurred Keys

Just a week after we wrote about the Irish Times adding a second pay barrier, the New York Times reported on their now demolished pay wall for all articles after 1987. (vie tomrafteryit.net)

Meanwhile, another US newspaper currently operating a pay wall looks
to be going the same way. "That looks like the way we’re going," Rupert
Murdoch said when talking of the online version of the Wall Street Journal. (vie Greenslade)

Although speculation has been growing since News Corp’s first moves
to buy Dow Jones, Murdoch’s latest comment are the clearest sign yet
that the wsj.com’s pay wall will be also dropped once News Corp takes
full control of Dow Jones.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” said Vivian L Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com. The NY Times have learned lessons, Murdoch and co also have a real understanding how the internet works… but, does the Irish Times?

Last year we reported how the Irish Times said that Ireland.com is a success, and nearly a break even levels. Page
impressions were at 15m at the time, that’s down from 25m pre paid subscription. Larger amounts of users is really what advertisers want to hear about. And with online advertising growing and broadband usage growing in Ireland, the IT would want to be asking is it missing out on growth, and readers who may become loyal to other news sites.

On another level, the Irish Times is, apparently, "an independent newspaper primarily concerned with serious issues for
the benefit of the community throughout the whole of Ireland, free from
any form of personal or party political, commercial, religious or other
sectional control," maybe they think less people reading the Irish Times content is for
the benefit of the community throughout the whole of Ireland?

ALSO READ: Is circulation revenue worth having now that advertisers love free titles?

We think it was a story in the Evening Herald  which recently highlighted RTE competing with its self over high profile programming, the above image shows a prime example.

Prosperity on RTE One while David McWilliams’ latest TV show, the Generation Game, on RTE Two.

Both shows would most likely get higher viewership if not pitted against each other… although maybe this way more people will not tune into rivals?

EDIT: We should have added that, in total, the coverage of the Northern Rock story was balanced out in the business section.

Newspapers are normally accused of hyperbole, but the Sunday Tribune could be accused of underplaying  a story when reporting yesterday that there was little panic among Irish customers of the troubled UK bank Northern Rock.

The Tribune’s front page story on the bank is stark contrast to other reports, including online and TV news reports which stated "Thousands of Northern Rock customers in Britain and Ireland queued at branches" and "Up to 300 people are queuing in front of Northern Rock’s headquarters in Dublin today" – including images of a large line of people outside the internet bank’s Dublin branch.

The only possibly reason is that  somebody at the Sunday Tribune was reading or watching Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, as Wikipedia explains…

In the novel, it is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it’s slightly cheaper, and because it has the words "Don’t Panic" on the cover.

- New yearly subscription costs €395

The Irish Times has launched a "digital archive", it’s addition to the newspaper’s website Ireland.com’s digital text archive.

According to ENN.ie, the “digital” scanned archive was co-funded by the Irish Times Ltd and the Library Council of Ireland through the Department of the Environment.

While the new archive will be free in public libraries and for primary and secondary schools, current paid subscribes will not have access to it.

The Times have developed a new subscription level ‘P+’ or ‘Premium Plus’ for between €395 yearly or €10 for 24-hour access.

The only extra for premium plus users is the scanned archives back to the newspaper’s launch in 1859. It’s a lot of content, but it comes in at over €300 euro extra per year then the normal €79 premium access.

The searchable system is also heavily restricted when it comes to saving content. Content can be saved by viewing ‘printer friendly’ PDF documents, however, text is not selectable as paragraphs appear as images not selectable text.

We tried the first edition of the Irish Times and a further flaw comes as articles that transcend multiple columns appear as different stories in the printer friendly PDFs.

That said, for just reading old editions of the newspaper the system built into Ireland.com works as well as, if not better then, other digital editions readers we’ve seen.

The new system is available for free to current subscribes until the end of the month.

The Independent on Sunday, Independent News & Media’s London-based Sunday title, is still seeing a drop in sales even after a recent re-design.

While bulk and foreign sale were up, the paper overall is continuing to slide. The Sindy’s re-launched as a single section paper appears to have failed to stall the decline.

Propped up

As with the Sunday Tribune here, the Independent stable in the UK is being propped up by IN&M. The Irish Times points out the London publications have been "consistently loss-making" since IN&M bought them, loosing €9 million last year alone.

Pressure to sell

Irish businessman and Indo shareholder, Denis O’Brien, recently put pressure on the company to  cut the London titles lose (sub reqd) while also bring up the topic of standards of corporate
governance.

The Irish Times has reported just a week ago (sub reqd) that Merrion Stockbrokers have downgraded IN&M from ‘buy’ to ‘hold’. Also in the Times news briefs are nearly daily reports of share buy backs, IN&M is continuing to buy back its own shares in an apparent attempt to stall O’Brien’s advances on the group.

MORE: Independent titles suffer as The Times prospers

An Irish beauty blog says it has up to 6,000 unique visitors, and over 150,000 hits a day, just one year after starting.

Beaut.ie run by sisters Kirstie and Aphrodite, has close to 2,000 posts on topics such as facials, lipgloss, waxing, and latest beauty trends.

Just one year old, the winners of best newcomer and best design at last year’s Irish Blog Awards are said to have ‘well over’ 50,000 comments.

(Vie mulley.net)

UCD are set to run awards for business journalism in the Republic and Northern Ireland.

The Business Journalist Awards are being organised by the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.

With a fund of €12,000 the awards are open to journalists who work for newspapers, radio, television, magazines, newsletters, commercial electronic media. This includes Irish outlets and Irish editions of UK publications.

Categories include business news, business comment, business feature, Business Technology Journalist, business broadcast, specialist business reporting, regional business reporting, and Young Journalist of the Year. Winner of each will get €1,500.

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NUJ focus on media convergence in Ireland at their IEC forum in October, it’s open to all union members.

The forum will follow the NUJ’s Irish Delegate Conference.

Its speakers will include Len Mulholland MoC Guardian Newspapers Chapel; Eanna O Caoilli,
FoC, ireland.com
chapel; and Eamon Ward, photographer, Clare People, the chair is Patrick Kinsella from the communications section of Dublin City University.

It is set to start at 2.30pm on Saturday, October 20, in the Tullamore Court Hotel. For further information on the event, or for booking inquires, email info@nuj.ie.

Members’ books exhibition

Also at the Irish Biennial Delegate
Conference on October 19 to 20, to mark the union’s centenary, the NUJ with Midland Books are set to display an exhibition of books by Irish NUJ members.

If you wish to be included send one non-returnable to Seamus
Dooley, NUJ, Spencer House, Spencer Row, Dublin 1.