Spoilt Princesses moaning about Media Coverage of Wolves

[Tony Towner]

It's no surprise given the premium content banner was used to build a database and they were bought by the Yorkshire Post earlier this year who are also subscription based. It's the sad reality of the newspaper business. For context the monthly subscription is less than the price you would have been paying for the paper daily 30 years ago

 

[Alan]

***everything*** is going subscription based now isn't it?

Cars being a new obvious one too.

There’s already a reactionary movement opposing this so we may yet avoid ‘Everything as a Service’.

 

[Kenny]

 

[Jinky]

I went for the £1 per month Athletic offer last night after initially cancelling it a few months back. PTS has put out a couple of decent articles in the last week or two, so for £12 a year, it’s worth it.

£42.99 for a year of the E&S - they can get in the sea.

 

[Tredman]

Should they do it for free?

 

[Carrotdude]

Tbf it might be worth the 40 quid to be able to actually read the website rather than it being 95% adverts

 

[Jinky]

Should they do it for free?

Not for me to say. I can only say I won’t be paying it.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Pretty sure there's a decent body of evidence that voluntary ad-free tiers (such as The Guardian) or low-cost models (The Athletic for 95%+ of their subscribers who will all be on deals at <£2/month) work better than out-and-out paywalls.

And they need to push it as "83p a week/12p a day" and compare that to the physical cover price or whatever if they want it to work, not £43 a year.

But essentially their content isn't of the quality to be worth anything. The writing isn't good enough bar Johnny Phillips and Paul Berry and they don't break news.

There's also the underlying entitlement of people these days that everything should be free ever which grates but what can you do.

 

[Tredman]

Not for me to say. I can only say I won’t be paying it.

Well you did literally say they ‘can get in the sea’.

We moan endlessly about the quality of local journalism but that’s cos they have no money so standards are shite. If we want local journalism, or indeed any content, we have to accept it needs to be paid for somehow*

*unless you are an Ursidae admin obvs

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I'd also argue the market just isn't there. It's easy to say "if it were better quality I'd pay for it", I don't think they would.

 

[Jinky]

Well you did literally say they ‘can get in the sea’.

We moan endlessly about the quality of local journalism but that’s cos they have no money so standards are shite. If we want local journalism, or indeed any content, we have to accept it needs to be paid for somehow*

*unless you are an Ursidae admin obvs

Yes, but the articles behind the E&S paywall articles will, in the main, be written by the same “shite” journalists we’ve been putting up with for free, I assume.

Therefore for ME, they can get in the sea. If you’re willing to pay it, fair play. If they get decent journalists like Johnny Phillips to post regular stuff behind the paywall, it might be worth considering. But not for Judah & Little Liam.

 

[Tony Towner]

Pretty sure there's a decent body of evidence that voluntary ad-free tiers (such as The Guardian) or low-cost models (The Athletic for 95%+ of their subscribers who will all be on deals at <£2/month) work better than out-and-out paywalls.

And they need to push it as "83p a week/12p a day" and compare that to the physical cover price or whatever if they want it to work, not £43 a year.

But essentially their content isn't of the quality to be worth anything. The writing isn't good enough bar Johnny Phillips and Paul Berry and they don't break news.

There's also the underlying entitlement of people these days that everything should be free ever which grates but what can you do.

The Athletic loses a fortune, its why they had to sell up to the NYT

The Athletic Cuts Down Losses, But NYT’s Internal Strife Growing

The Athletic is making increased strides toward profitability — but continues to create organizational turmoil for its parent company, The New York Times.

frontofficesports.com

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

The Athletic loses a fortune, its why they had to sell up to the NYT

Yeah, The Guardian is loss-making too.

Reach plc are fucked and shedding sports writers where they can.

I don't have the answer. I know if I started writing again (not particularly on the agenda, but you never know) and put it behind an inaccessible £2/month paywall I'd get very few subscribers. But I did used to get more than that with a voluntary tip jar system.

 

[AndyWolves]

Unfortunately the only way I can see local newspaper type websites making a profit is to laden it with ads and then write shitty click-bait articles to drive traffic.

We only bought the E&S back in the day because there was very limited ways of knowing what was going on locally. There's tons of ways now and most are free.

 

[Kenny]

Starting to expand its articles or just an early push to get people onside?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1727387971039748539

 

[Quirkafleeg]

Next up Dazzling Dave goes behind a paywall...

 

[ROVERT47]

I still have one delivered, haven’t got a clue why it’s news from the previous day, I reckon it’s gotta be something like forty years I’ve been having one delivered, just can’t be arsed to cancel it.
I remember years ago when it was a proper evening paper you’d come out of the match to ‘Town final’ and it would have the halftime scores along the bottom in the stop press, hang about for a while and pick up the Pink.

 

[Tony Towner]

Just listened to the e&s podcast and Judah has offered to help anyone out who is struggling over Xmas, either financially with a gift or food, or mentally if they'd just like a chat at a tough time of year

Completely genuine and fair play to him.

 

[Shotbybothsides]

I really like Nathan Judah. Good lad.

 

[Del Woppio]

Merry Christmas Mrs Judah xx