Times loses almost 90% of online readership
Less than three weeks after the Times paywall went up, data shows a massive decline in web traffic
Josh Halliday,  guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 July 2010

The Times has lost almost 90% of its online readership compared to February since making registration mandatory in June, calculations by the Guardian show.

Unregistered users of thetimes.co.uk are now "bounced" to a Times+ membership page where they have to register if they want to view Times content. Data from the web metrics company Experian Hitwise shows that only 25.6% of such users sign up and proceed to a Times web page; but it also says that traffic to the Times site is now only 4.16% of UK online newspaper traffic, compared with 15% before it made registration compulsory on 15 June.

Based on the last available ABCe data for Times Online readership (from February 2010), which showed that it had 1.2 million daily unique users, and Hitwise's figures showing it had 15% of UK online newspaper traffic, that means a total of 332,800 daily users trying to visit the Times site.

If none of the people visiting the site have already registered, the one-on-four dropout rate means that traffic actually going from the registration site to the Times site is just 84,800, or 1.06% of total UK newspaper traffic – a 93% fall compared with May.


Full story at The Guardian.