Times of Malta to tempt readers with premium, but will users pay?

Everyone is watching closely what Allied Newspapers is about to do, as the full-page ad with head of media (formerly Sunday Times deputy editor) Herman Grech invites readers to come aboard their premium site: is this where the buck stops with Malta's fast-developing online news industry?

In the last two years, practically every media house launched its online portal in a final push to tap into the big readership traffic and its slow growth of advertising revenue. Print sales are slowly suffering, but it is only anecdotal evidence that suggests that the Maltese daily will soon be coming to an end, leaving only internet news and the big Sunday read as the only self-sustaining model for news organisations.

Note that the Times's premium model is not essentially a paywall... or is it a porous one? Allied Group's managing editor Adrian Hillman says the newspaper's audience will still be able to avail itself of the "free timesofmalta.com as a site to acquire breaking news", which of late had started to publish snippets of its print stories in the morning, before publishing them in full later in the evening.

Instead, premium is tapping into the cross-media market of users who acquire their news online, on tablets, on their mobile phones, and now with some added benefits previously acquired against payment.

"Premium content will appeal to those subscribers that want the facility to acquire Times of Malta content on multiple platforms," Hillman said. "The idea is to distinguish its role as a supplier of breaking news and a supplier of news which has value to a particular but significant audience in this country. The premium package will include global access to timesofmalta.com, the e-paper, the full version of Times of Malta digital archive (dating back to 1935) as well as access to the optimised version of timesofmalta.com on tablet devices."

The concept sounds simple enough, although the first question is whether people want to pay for the news supplied by The Times in the face of competition from contenders like MaltaToday or the Malta Independent, to name those internet players with English-language print media. By way of example, the Financial Times's paywall hides behind it essential market and finance news and intelligence that is so specialist and well-honed in quality, that it is an invaluable product for its users (notwithstanding that they are a particularly 'paying' demographic). On the other hand, The Times of London's fortress-like paywall has pushed readers away to such an extent, that a PADD national readership survey for 2012 now shows the Times is being read by fewer people than the Independent or the London Evening Standard.

With premium, Hillman says The Times is keeping pace with developments in digital media abroad "where a number of leading media organisations have gone down this route".

He dispels claims that the popularity of Timesofmalta.com has eaten into its print revenues, with users easily forgoing the print edition to consume online news easily and for free. "The shift to premium has nothing to do with print - in fact our print subscriptions have increased by a third in 2013... I think people understand that by delivering independent, quality and credible news we are performing a vital role which requires substantial investment. We believe this is a service worth paying half the price of a newspaper for, especially when one considers all the additional benefits - like access to our archive and digital newspaper - we are throwing in."

Yes, 50% of the print edition's price is good value for money, coupled with the cross-media apps, (re)reading the digital news on an e-paper, and getting access to that archive of archives. But does this mean that paying will give users something essentially new? Will it mean more news, more harnessing of the power of conveying news in the glory of digital - sound, vision, data - other than a replica of the print medium, online?

As Hillman is quick to point out, access to timesofmalta.com's breaking news service, as well as a range of other features, will remain free. "Premium is about giving readers the choice to subscribe to additional features. Some media organisations - MaltaToday is one - already operate a policy of not placing their most prized newspaper content online immediately.

"We believe premium is the next logical step, in that readers can have all our content immediately on their tablet and computer anywhere, anytime. It's just a reflection of today's realities."

Hillman stresses again that this "has nothing to do with print, which is a separate and distinct quality product we offer to our readers". But the suspicion is that TOM's premium model - if the 'premium' doesn't manifest itself in the story content and digital provision - is more akin to a 'freemium' service. You can get the stuff on The Times for free, but in less detail, without the frills of the full-on digital news experience. It's like peeking over somebody's shoulder as they read the paper - only you're only getting the first few paragraphs.

Paying €155.48 a year to read the news and the Times's add-ons is certainly value-for-money, but the payoff is yet to be seen. Will the premium revenue boost take place at the expense of internet traffic going elsewhere? Allied Newspapers might think that as long as the big advertising bucks remain in print, losing out on the digital dimes is a gamble worth taking.

So does Hillman see other news organisations following suit, and learning from The Times? "The sector is moving so quickly at present that it is difficult to predict what will happen next week, never mind in five years' time," he says when I suggest a time-frame for the countdown to total premium conversion. "If other organisations can provide the range of services we are offering, then I see no reason why they should not also charge for premium content. If one looks abroad, that is certainly the trend and readers are taking to it.

"Clearly the English-language media in this country are the entities which remain unsupported by instruments of State and political parties. They survive on the quality of their content and to my mind will continue to do so."