hermit kingdom

Apparently 15,000 people have crossed the DMZ the wrong way and signed up for the paywalled Times and Sunday Times. We don’t know how many of these had work related expenses budgets to spend, perhaps on a use it or lose it basis. 

I thought the original debate was skewed somewhat by being about the internet rather than about the papers themselves and their financial position – in other words, about us rather than them. And I was a bit sceptical that - say – Clay Shirky knew better how to reduce the Times and Sunday Times’ losses than Murdoch does. 

Now I’m not so sure. I don’t know if the Murdoch people consider the readership figures of a large group blog satisfactory or not. I doubt it. That presents a problem, since now they need to start breaking stories – like the Mandelson biography – that get the papers mentioned by other media outlets, and therefore drive subscriptions. Pushing the general news agenda is obviously a large part of what newspapers do anyway, but this risks tipping the Times content frankly and openly into something akin to link whoring, except without the actual links. 

The odd thing is about the Times is the way it just vanished. The only people who really discussed its voluntary walling up in a nunnery were those who wanted to explain why they weren’t going to sign up. I never read the Times, though the ST was occasionally a second Sunday paper in the days when I used to buy them. 

But back in the pre-internet days I was certainly aware of the Times as an institution. I had the sense that it would always be there and that it fulfilled a need of some sort. It had an ambient presence, and quite a large one, extending far outside its actual readership. 

And now, nothing. Nothing at all. It’s not just a case of not missing it but of forgetting that it was ever there, which is quite odd when you think of the wider social role and meaning it used to have in British life: from Voice of the Establishment to Hermit Kingdom. Or perhaps it’s a consequence of the whole debate about the paywall. If you’re constantly reminded that something is no longer there, then you’re forced to conclude how little it matters. I suppose that’s what happens to hollow institutions when they stop constantly reminding people that they are institutions. I wonder what would happen if you put the Royals behind a paywall.

Comments

[ejh]

Presumably it still exists as a physical phenomenon, at newsagents, that sort of thing?

[Charlie]

Yes, and those readers are said to be worth more to advertisers, but ... For several years at the height of the 'boom' I used to get a print paper every weekday (Guardian mostly, but not always) then take it to lunch at a cafe: I suppose I took my 'boom' dividend partly as leisure. Since the coming of the smartphone, I just go with that, if I have time, or if I can be bothered. Clay Shirky says there's a generation coming who'll have never bought a newspaper. Not a stunning prediction, but - barring some weird technology regression - correct, I reckon.

[Tom]

"Presumably it still exists as a physical phenomenon, at newsagents, that sort of thing?"

For how much longer, though? My parents, who switched from the Independent to the Times after 25 years in disgust at Alton's editorship of the former, have now switched back again.

"Since the coming of the smartphone, I just go with that, if I have time"

I'm certainly at the stage where I'll a) pick the phone over a discarded Evening Standard in the train and b) try and pick the train that doesn't have many tunnels en route. I blame Twitter.

The Standard, of course, has gone the opposite way from the Times in making the whole thing free, and actually succeeded in turning this into cash. Which brings us neatly back to what the Independent might do.

[Phil]

I wonder what would happen if you put the Royals behind a paywall.

Ha. "All they cost you is 71p a day! That, and the pre-emptive loss of the choice of what to do with that 71p!"

(Yabbut Tate Modern subsidised opera Foreign Office ect ect.)

[quite successfuklly to modern globalized culture.]

Is this a breach in the wall?

http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/times0020.html

[ajay]

69p a year, not a day.
But yes, it would be an interesting experiment. A bit Ballardian. Or Philip K Dick. Non-subscribers don't get news about the Royals, and if they stumble across a Royal his face is pixellated out.

Next step, obviously: open it up to competition. I would happily pay 69p a year to subscribe to King David I Attenborough.

[dsquared]

and if they stumble across a Royal his face is pixellated out

perhaps non-subscribers would get access to Prince Edward, Zara Phillips and Princess Eugenie

[ajay]

Er, dsquared, I think you're supposed to put the good stuff behind the paywall. Non-subscribers get the Duke of Kent. Zara and Eugenie are on pay per view...

[dsquared]

You would need some pretty aggressive intellectual property law to support it though, and rigidly enforced geographical zoning, like they do with the football. Otherwise you'd get British people consuming the monarchical services of the King and Queen of Sweden, on the cheap. The first line of the Dutch national anthem, for example, would be right out:

"I am a loyal subject of the King of Spain"

not unless you've paid full freight you aren't, Gert.

[jamie]

I suspect what the royals need here is a little brand differentation. Prince Harry in a pay TV tie in with Nuts, for instance, or a kind of adult channel for the elder royals (adult here meaning for inhabitants of nursing homes)

[CharlieMcMenamin]

Naw, this analogy doesn't work for me. The Royals aren't something to be paid for on a subscription service. They're something which gets bundled in with other, more commercially attractive services to make the offer seem broader than it actually is - more QVC or TV Gold than Sky Sports 1.

[Richard J]

They're more like spandrels, aren't they? Pretty little things occupying a random niche in the class system.

[ajay]

You would need some pretty aggressive intellectual property law to support it though, and rigidly enforced geographical zoning, like they do with the football. Otherwise you'd get British people consuming the monarchical services of the King and Queen of Sweden, on the cheap.

Well, I think that's fair enough. They do, after all, get access to our BBC websites.
If monarchy were included under WTO rules, this might cause problems, because it would effectively count as dumping of a state-subsidised product onto the world monarchy market. But at present I think it's OK.

[Richard J]

The British monarchy is actually a rare example of a British success story against Germany industry. Up to the early 20th century, you wanted a royal, you got a German in (e.g. Britain, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, etc.). Now, owing to regulatory changes in Germany after the First World War, their indigenous industry collapsed, allowing us to take over the market. Cleverly, we went for a franchise model. No danger of asset appropriations by nationalist regimes.

[Richard J]

Sorry, franchise isn't quite the right word - we allowed other countries to outsource the drama and pageant of royalty to us.

[jamie]

OK, so what if we were to do to the Royals what the Chinese government did to its ministries back in the eighties: say, OK, from now on we're not paying you money, you're paying us money - go out and make it? Prince Charles' property and organic nibbles empire would be a nice little earner, and I guess the Royals could do their numerous visits on a pay for play basis. They could hire out the servants too. And do they charge for that by royal appointment folderol? We could really sweat that asset if we tried.