Currant Bun erects £2 paywall: Wraps digi-paper around free footie

British tabloid The Sun has revealed a subscription plan to access the digital version of the newspaper, Sun+. The daily is essentially offering a football video package with The Sun's stories wrapped around it, for £2 a week. Near-live TV clips of Premier League games will be bundled in the deal, as News International's …

[nuked]

How does this differ from The Sun's website, which appears at first (and only) glance to be exactly the same as the described premium service?

[Gordon Pryra]

Good idea for once

Affordable price for a product their intended market actually want.

its good to see stories like this appear about the web, for once it doesn't appear to have one side scamming the other.

That said, having lived in Vicarage Road in Watford from an early age, and having seen them play live around 15 times and NEVER seen them win or loose. I kin hate football. Don't much like the Sun either

[Martin]

...never seen them win or LOSE.

loose = not tight.

lose = not win.

Sigh.

[Danny 14]

Re: ...never seen them win or LOSE.

well if you swap loose for lose then watford have a 1 point bonanza record. Then again if he has never seen them win or loose then perhaps watford should think about relaxing the formation a bit? Perhaps a 4 2 3 1 as enjoyed by the rather flexible german teams.

[Steven Raith]

Mail online

As Rupert Murdoch told the Leveson inquiry (PDF), the Mail Online is "unrecognisable as part of the Daily Mail"

I dunno, they're both pathetic excuses for actual journalism, so there's definitely a resemblance.

[JimC]

Well hopefully

The increasing use of paywalls is a sign that we will get liberated from Big Advertsing being the only source of income on the net...

[Ragarath]

Re: Well hopefully

@JimC

I take it you mean because they are charging for content they won't show advertising? Good luck with that! If there are two income streams why cut one off?

I point out the paper in question. You pay for the paper (to read I presume or maybe P3 but then there is the web for that) and what do you find inside? Yup adverts, so the case already exists.

[Spoonsinger]

"The Daily Telegraph introduced a subscription last month, with the first 20 articles free"

Ummm, well, Firefox->Privacy->Remove individual cookies->Search 'Telegraph'->Delete All.

[gazthejourno]

Re: "The Daily Telegraph introduced a subscription last month, with the first 20 articles free"

But that would be naughty. As would browsing the Torygraph in por- ahem, private mode to auto-clear cookies on exit.

[Tim Brown 1]

Re: "The Daily Telegraph introduced a subscription last month, with the first 20 articles free"

The technical incompetence of the Telegraph's setup is staggering.

[Steve Evans]

Re: "The Daily Telegraph introduced a subscription last month, with the first 20 articles free"

As staggering as the graudian's grammar and spell check?

[Spoonsinger]

Re: "The technical incompetence of the Telegraph's setup is staggering."

Actually It's not really technical incompetence which is the problem, more a marketing thing. i.e. they need to draw in people with the free articles to persuade them to buy into their 'bigger' package. However really only two easy ways to do this:-

1) Cookie counter, (obviously flawed)

2) Force initial user account setup with limited free articles, (also flawed because you'd just go and setup a new account when the free stuff runs out)

Ahh you say, what if the user actually has to give some unique identification when they create the account for #2, (i.e. unique credit card number or bank details). Well a) that's a hassle for getting people to read your drivel and b) people will just go to sites which amalgamate the news rather than wanting to put themselves on a 'list'.

With the cookie approach they are assuming that most of the folk who read the drivel are technically incompetent and that, obviously, has been calculated into the reason for going that way. The, errm, 'freeloaders', still have the adverts, ermmm, sometimes. So it's really extra dosh, for not a lot of effort.

[Tom 38]

Re: "The Daily Telegraph introduced a subscription last month, with the first 20 articles free"

It only needs to be as technically competent as their readership. Most Telegraph readers I know are "of a certain age", this would (and does) flummox them to the extent that it does work.

It only has to work for a certain percentage of the readership, and then you don't worry about the others. It's like piracy, as long as it is extremely hard and on the fringes of the internet, nae bother, if it is easy enough that Jammie Thomas can do it, plenty bother.

[helicoil]

Re: "The Daily Telegraph introduced a subscription last month, with the first 20 articles free"

Or just open a "New Private Window" .

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly

What about page3.com?

[Anonymous Coward 15]

Re: More importantly

It's the Internet, you can already see boobs and a whole lot more elsewhere.

[Crisp]

Re: More importantly

There are boobs on the internet!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can only hope Google News now stops giving me Sun stories

and if so then hoping Daily-Celeb---Slip-Mail follows suit, since despite setting the sliders for these publications to nil Google still slathers them into the news feed.

[Dalek Dave]

The Daily Telegraph subscription is easily avoided.

I leave it as an exercise for other readers.

Clue : Cookies

[Anonymous Coward]

"Near-live TV clips of Premier League"

I have images of recreations of match moments using stopmation and Subbuteo.

PS. I have to say that I had no idea the Sun was also known as Currant Bun until reading this; I thought there was some satirical periodical a la Daily Mash/Onion I was unaware of. Actually, it could also be the Sun is a satirical newspaper and I never realised.

[Fihart]

Another reason not to look at Sun site.

I thought the Metro (the London free paper, not the TIFKAM so beloved of our readers) was vacuous and stupid, but a glance at the Sun reassures me that, still, no-one loses money by underestimating the intelligence of the general public. Bring on the Paywall and, please feel free to quadruple the price of the printed paper. The less people read it, the better.

[Piro]

Re: Another reason not to look at Sun site.

Agreed. I have no problem with them taking money from football fans. Can't stand it.

[billynomates]

Re: Another reason not to look at Sun site.

The fewer......... not the less. One has to keep ones standards up when slagging off the red tops. Billynomates for a reason.

[Fihart]

Re: Another reason not to look at Sun site.

Fewer people reading it, or people reading it less ? Really doesn't bother me and I make my living as a writer.

[Magister]

Meh

Haven't read the Currant Bun for nearly 40 years; I thought it was a waste of paper then and nothing I've heard since would encourage me to change my mind. (Nor the Mirror)

Not interested in accessing their web site; not if they paid me £2 a week. If I want that kind of news, I can make it up myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a tragedy!

On second thoughts, let the old Walnut face keep his Tits.

There's enough smut around to be paying for them.

[Sirius]

Sport?

Why do so many people (mainly in the media admittedly) think that "sport" is a synonym for "football"?

[MJI]

Re: Sport?

What you do is simple.

They name a footballist and you reply

"Haven't heard of them, who do they drive for and what formual?"

[Fihart]

Re: Sport?

The moment I hear someone pronounce footballer as footblr I switch off because I know that what follows will be terminally boring.

[Winkypop]

See ya old Rupey-boy

Feel free to place your crap inside a pay-wall.

Good riddance to you and your atrocious brand of 'churnalism'.

[waves]

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: See ya old Rupey-boy

The Sun has a website?

On a slightly more serious note...

Having never visited their site and not being a reader of the paper, putting up a paywall makes no difference to me. Not sure why it should matter to you either. "Good riddance" is a bit harsh for something you don't read anyway.

[Winkypop]

Re: See ya old Rupey-boy

Agreed.

[John Smith 19]

Murdoch "unrecognisable as part of the Daily Mail".

He's seems to be saying it like that was a bad thing.

Personally I think it appeals very well to the desires of may core Daily jailbait Mail readers.

[Simon Harris]

Who needs The Sun online....

... when you've got such high quality news stories on Yahoo! News! for free to compete with it!

Joke Alert, because as reporting standards go, both are!

[El Presidente]

I've been part of the 24 hour news cycle

It's 98% utter crap, mostly just for the sake of it.

Only about 2% of what is presented as 'news' actually matters to the average person, the rest of it is Gonzo rubbish, journalists opinion, sport and sleb gossip. All of which is there to please advertisers and owners.

[Will Godfrey]

Just remember..

Looking directly at the sun is bad for your eyes.

[Anonymous Coward]

If i want to read a comic

I'll subscribe to Viz!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean

If the Sun is behind a paywall and people visit it, it won't let them out ? Oh joy ! All those Sun readers removed from teh interwebs at a stroke :)

[Simon Harris]

Re: Does this mean

Ahh, now I understand. Unlike every other paywall, with The Sun paywall you have to pay to be let out!

[Tezfair]

can't remember the last time I read a newspaper

Why pay for yesterdays news when the bbc news website does a respectable job for free*

*tv license acknowledged