Media

Times claims 200,000 paid online users - but only if they include 100,000 print subscribers

Darren Atwater | Tuesday 2 November, 2010 12:37

Cory Doctorow in Boing Boing lays it out

First of all, 100,000 of the 200,000 paid subscribers are Times print subscribers who get the online edition for free (proving, I guess, that people like free stuff?). Of the remaining 100,000 “paid subscribers,” some unknown number are people who bought access to a single article or paid for a £1 trial subscription for a month, or bought the iPad or Android App. All of these categories are surely “paid customers,” but they’re not monthly subscribers paying full freight to access the site — we don’t even know how many people who paid for one day’s access ever paid for a second day’s access (or converted to a regular subscriber).

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