Times begins charges for online readers

[dreamcatcher]

The Times newspaper has begun charging readers to access its online content.

From now on, access to the Times and Sunday Times website will cost £1 per day, or £2 a week if readers sign up to a subscription.

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

dc

[dudibob]

I'm in the UK and a huge fan of the BBC site as it's fantastic. It should not be broken up to compensate the failing newspapers. Mainly because the TV license fee would not go down and we'd have a lame news source left so the pay wall sites get more coverage? no thanks

[Mark_A]

What is certain is that while the BBC news website is free at the point of use newspapers will be limited in the quantities of subscribers they may get.

I can't see any way round it. We, the BBC licence fee payers want a comprehensive news site as part of it.

[justa]

It's a battle of the free vs paid.

On one hand you have these news providers moving towards paid content, while others move towards a Free Open distribution of content.

I personally think that BBC should fall under the paid banner. Even though the news is produced and accessible to most of the World (if not all), they take steps to restrict some of their services to only paying subscribers (iPlayer).

Fair enough, not everyone pays a TV license in the UK, but most people do, and that sends a substantial amount of cash towards the development of BBC media.

I like the Guardians approach where they have built an API for the greater public to find and utilise the information on offer.

[guardian.co.uk...]

[heisje]

Regarding BBC: while the UK taxpayer supports financially its operation, by its free services, now including satellite and the web, accessible all over the world, the UK gains immense publicity globally at a bargain price.

In this respect, "free" BBC seems a particularly good "investment" for everything British - good ROI re: politics, tourism, exports, sale of services, including education & finance.

For some organizations, "paid or free" goes much beyond the narrow boundaries of the cost of supporting a free online presence. In such cases, considerations are truly complex, sometimes verging on the "national interest".

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