It’s good fun to watch the Guardian and The Times slug it out in a war of words over their respective strategies. Syon MD Graeme Gourlay looks at what it means for digital publishers…
News UK chief Mike Darcy landed a few solid right hooks last week at the Digital Media Strategies Conference in London when he suggested the Guardian is taking taking a big risk betting its whole future on its open web strategy and was right to point out that his priority, as laid down by Rupert Murdoch, is to run a profitable business. And all of us interested in the successful future for digital publishing should welcome his boasts that by last December, The Times and Sunday Times had 153,000 paying digital subscribers and a further 207,000 subscribers to the print edition who receive digital benefits as part of their package and that last year The Sun landed 100,000 digital subscribers in its first four months behind a pay wall.
However, going on to sneer at The Guardian for not giving a monkey’s about profit and being determined to give away their digital content for free, might be missing the point. While the Scott Trust – owners of the Guardian – clearly have a few years grace to try out their own digital strategy after this year’s the sale of Auto Trader for £690m and they are clearly running at a loss right now, they have been laying plenty of hints that their long-term view is to create a sustainable business and that they are not myopically wedded to a free-for-all digital future.
At the same conference the Guardian’s chief executive, Andrew Miller warned people not to ‘equate open with free’, the Guardian’s focus is on operating within the free web, he said, to ‘follow the consumer’ and respond to the way people are finding and accessing news and then to ‘build a business around that’. The Guardian’s editor Alan Rusbridger has been saying the same for a while.
According to figures Miller shared with delegates, the news outlet has 90 million uniques worldwide, including 23 million in the US and 3.8 million in Australia.
The big question is 
just how and when does the Guardian cash in on these very impressive numbers. Interestingly they are starting to talk more and more about a membership options where consumers are charged for added value. One figure the Guardian doesn’t yet make a big play about is the number of people already paying for its very effective app – but the number of people already paying for a digital version of the Guardian is already substantial and growing fast.
Clearly the Guardian has no problems charging £6.99 for a digital sub and right now it wants to keep its web pages open and free to pull those 90 million uniques. There is no reason to assume that this is a simple black and white world world of free-content warriors versus money-grabbing pay-wallers.
We all mix up those strategies where appropriate. At Syon we are happy to give away immediate digital access and charge for archive back issues of DIVE magazine. For many of our clients we strongly suggest that digital editions should be seen as a chargeable part of a membership package and not a free-giveaway. The point being the strategy must fit the ambitions and needs of each client and product.
There was one thing both the Guardian and The Times did seem happy to monster – the Mail’s voracious, and some argue out-of-control, web giant. They both suggest this beast could gobble up ‘proper’ journalism with its ugly mix of regurgitated gossip and dodgy photographs. Nice to see them agreeing about something!
Tags:Digital Media Strategies Conference, The Guardian, The Times
