Judge your paywalls the simple way – £1 a day for the Times online, £2 a week for the Thunderer and Sunday Times – and somehow, the long-pondered Murdoch strategy for generating a digital cashflow doesn't seem made in blogging heaven. Where's the beef when so much net news elsewhere stays free? £104 a year for two papers online 24/7 makes the BBC licence fee look fantastic value.
But when you try to judge Murdoch, you put aside simplicities. These are very early registration days, before any money needs to change hands. Think a bottle of Château Rupe Rouge on some supermarket shelf at an alleged £10, "reduced" to £4.25 for Easter. Think two-for-ones, special offers. This wall building has only just started: it hasn't remotely finished yet.
And, under the counter, different mix and match gambits. Subscribe to the print versions for the week and the net comes "free" (with the Sun, News of the World and a Sky-full of satellite TV wheezes in the next drawer down). If the Times attracts maybe 300,000 "engaged" online subscribers, then they'll be the kind advertisers value most. If people don't want to pay for the Sunday Times alone (because who on earth wants to plough through that forest of paper on an IPhone?) then the pricing is prohibitive enough to lend some protection to print.
Reckon that Mr M has taken a big gamble if you like: but don't conclude that he's dropped a brick just yet.
