According to an article published on rival news paper website The Gaurdian, the Times has managed to loose its self the majority of its readers. For a news paper, this cant be a good sign and is probably likely to extend to physical newspaper sales too. Impacting on an industry which already faces problems with the existing free news online trend.

Most of their competitors are working with the business model of free news leading to strong advertising revenue. I know that this is the more preferred model of getting news amongst me and my friends. Indeed I must admit , I have never bought a news paper for myself unless there was some ulterior motive – I did get a free travel on the subway once.

Experts monitoring Internet activity has shown that prior to the launch of the pay for service have shown that in the pre-registration period they managed to alienate a significant quantity of its readership. I would expect that the compeditors are happy about this as they have likely went over to their sites instead.

Should be intresting to see if over the next few weeks they revert back to free news.

References
The Gaurdian