Rupert Murdoch’s plans to put the content of his news websites behind paywalls suffered a blow yesterday when a report issued by a media consultancy revealed that most web users ‘couldn’t really give a shit whether they read the news or not.’
According to the research the vast majority of the people questioned for the survey had no real interest in the news at all. A small number of them would glance at a news webpage every now and then, but only if, say, someone they knew on a social networking site had posted a link to it.
One of the researchers pointed out that:
Most of the readership of news pages are obsessives who read everything out there. If news organisations all start trying to make them pay, then most of them said they would have to severely restrict the number of websites they visit, as they could not afford to visit more than one or two, if that. So, any site introducing paywalls will find that its audience dwindles down to next to nothing.
The only other people who regularly visit news websites are bloggers looking for raw material, and if they get blocked by paywalls they’ll just turn on each other and rip the shit out of each other’s articles instead of those from news sites.
As one Sun reader mumbled:
That ‘news’ stuff? Nah, mate I ain’t interested. It’s all about politicians and stuff like that, innit? Only things that interest me are Page 3 and the football, and I wouldn’t pay for either of them, especially not the way United are playing this season.
Although, about the news… I wish they’d find that woman who’s killing all the polar bears… whatshername… Gloria Warning… or something like that? I’m getting really fed up of hearing about her all the time.
The research report pointed out that the only things on the web – apart from porn – that people habitually visit, and therefore might be willing to pay for, are sites which show either videos of people falling over in a genitalia-imperilling manner, or sites showing photographs of some celebrity slapper who went out for a night on the town after forgetting to put her knickers on, or who has not noticed that her tits have fallen out of her dress… again.
However, last night there were rumours all around the internet that Rupert Murdoch had given up his attempt to put his news sites behind paywalls, and was instead busy buying up every site that feature pictures and videos of fluffy kittens being cute, and putting them behind paywalls instead, in a move that one web pundit described as ‘sheer evil genius’.
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