Kurt Sansone’s Sunday morning article introducing the Times’ (of Malta) new premium scheme kicks off with a tenuous comparison to the introduction of the Rediffusion a good 77 years ago. Biblical scholars tell us that the number 77 signified a very large number as in Jesus’ affirmation “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy seven times!”. Aeons if you like. The introduction of the rediffusion is in fact not just the matter of another century but in technological terms it is comparable to prehistory. You can get radio anywhere now – especially via internet. I recently discovered the strange experience of driving through forests in Luxembourg while listening to eight-ninety-seven-bay… thanks to an internet connection hooked onto the car sound system.
What rediffusion did was bring wireless entertainment to many homes. I’m not sure whether Kurt opted for the aesthetic/nostalgic approach before dropping the bomb and announcing that “It is within this scenario that timesofmalta.com will from tomorrow offer its readers premium content against payment, a first for any Maltese news website.” That’s another record broken, or should I say broken record? Kurt moves on to examine the “ruffled feathers” and follows this up with the question: ” Should news content delivered by media organisations over the internet remain free?”
It turns out that breaking news will still be accessible (that’s the top part of the TOM page – the one most prone to errors caused by expediency) but the rest will be accessible only once you pay to get through the firewall*. So in actual fact what you would have to pay for is the analysis and blogs and maybe the odd bit of odd news – the rest you could read anyway. Which is just as well given how the Independent has upped its updating frequency and seems to be serving the purpose of immediate news provision just fine – which would make the Times charging for the very same news ridiculous (also considering the other news websites available for public consumption).
So what can we really make of this premium site move? To begin with you do get a feeling that the guys at the Times think a tad bit too much of themselves and their content. The suspicion that you get is that the Times had lured the multitude of commentators (that it insists on calling bloggers) into some form of addiction and is now hoping that they will be willing to pay to sustain their habit. In recent months it was also evident that the Times was delaying the uploading of most content that was not breaking news even more. Sunday articles would only be up on Monday – giving us online commentators a hard time to keep up with the “opinion” corners.
Did the Times gain anything economically from this move? I wouldn’t know. What I can say is that the move is a huge gamble – one that could deliver a sucker punch to the ego of the whole set up at Allied Newspapers. Unlike the printed paper that many faithful readers would buy out of habit on any given Sunday, the payment for online content seems to require a different level of commitment. When one considers the alternatives online and the actual quality of what is being offered by the Times itself it is hard to see how easily internet users would part with even a tiny sum to fall in line with the Times new premium policy.
The Times also forgets one major detail. The “breaking news” bit that is free is a common currency that can be found elsewhere. If anything the Times should have been using its additional “exclusive” content to lure more readers while boosting its advantage through the sale of advertising. The dastardly combination of addicted commentators and free riders should have meant that the Times was steadily building a huge audience – one that should be translated to advertising revenue. What the Times seems to be preferring to do is to slay the goose – sure you get rid of the “scum” (and avoid having to employ a comments censor) but you are risking to get rid of the whole base upon which your online business should have been built.
Much of what is happening can be attributed to a very Maltese way of thinking about knowledge and power when it comes to the media. The traditional media houses still think very much in term of controlling the way information comes out and is presented. From the Times to MaltaToday to the Malta Independent it is the same story that only varies very slightly. The Times has gone one step ahead – charging for what it deems to be premium news. The mentality is sadly very much in the style of Rediffusion seventy-seven years back – the notion of one-way traffic of information controlled at source that is deemed by the provider to be the “best possible wireless entertainment”. We beg to differ.
Come to think of it there’s a lesson that Times readers could learn from a great wall builder. When the Chinese built their Great Wall most thought that it was meant to keep invaders out. In actual fact its main purpose was to keep the Chinese in.
* It has been pointed out to me by experts in the field that the term “firewall” is not an accurate description of the Times’ premium scheme. The actual name is a paywall. I wrote the article labouring under the illusion that a paywall is a type of firewall that requires payment to be overridden – much like the troll-ridden toll bridges of lore. In this case it turns out that payment for access to a troll-ridden site means that it is a paywall. Apologies for the confusion.
