Times paywall: Still no numbers but does it matter?

News International’s Dominic Carter did not reveal the Times’ paywall numbers at last week’s Future of National Newspaper seminar, despite lots of probing. He did, however, say the numbers were “encouraging”.

Rupert Murdoch has already claimed the subscriber numbers are “good” – although as another panellist asked, what is good? Beehive forecasts something around the 15,000 mark but Carter was careful not to give anything away, simply saying: “We’ll release them when we’re ready, analysts wouldn’t expect us to release them before 6 months.”

Meanwhile, Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, said analysts “don’t care about the numbers – they are expecting them to be tiny, don’t kid yourself”.

Alan Brydon, head of trading at MPG Media Contacts, agreed and said from an agency view, News International has not taken much of a risk with the paywall – “newspaper buyers care about The Times… but Times Online comes way down the list… digital people just shrug their shoulders about the Times paywall”.

However, Brydon did say that if News International could get their head around the metrics and provide some detailed information about their online subscribers, the Times site would become a much more attractive proposition for advertisers.

“It is much better to spend money on very targeted, engaging ads with no wastage. The Times have a great opportunity and it’s something we should be very excited about. You can put a display ad anywhere, but knowing exactly who you’re reaching and that they’ll be interested is much more effective for advertisers. It’s not always about big numbers.”

Carter did not hint at numbers, big or small, but he did say that the Times’ advertisers are “very happy with what we’re doing”.

Meanwhile, Adam Freeman, after suggesting that Murdoch was “testing the paywall model with his weakest digital brand worldwide”, said that Guardian News & Media preferred to talk mobile strategies rather than online. “People will absolutely not pay the cover price to access a title online,” he said. “The mobile space is much more exciting for us… You can get users to pay for apps and while there is no micropayment system in place, online will continue to be a hard sell.”