Print subscribers to The Australian face 84 per cent price hike but given ‘free’ digital access
Di Santo
Print subscribers to The Australian have been hit with an 84 per cent price increase with publisher News Corp offering a digital subscription to its products at “no extra cost” as part of the arrangement.
Currently print-only subscribers to the national broadsheet pay $6.95 per week to have it delivered to their door six days per week, but from June 20 that price will rise to $12-per-week.
In a letter to subscribers editor-in chief Chris Mitchell said “We are committed to continually improving your newspaper experience, which means we need to increase our prices from time to time,” adding the subscribers would now have access to the refreshed iPad app and unlimited digital access to The Australian and Business Spectator.
“Due to the benefits passed on to older white men in the recent Budget, we believe you can afford to pay more.”
The Times (if you pardon the expression) are catching up with News. Their style of in your face sensationalism and banner headlines are a turnoff to the new generation who see the organisation as old fashioned and the papers peddling fascist propaganda. The only people still buying the papers are old who are dying off. I predict that within a year the print editions will disappear, and a year after that the newspaper division will close altogether.
The Weekend Australian seems unable to manage to deliver even pre-paid papers on the lower North Shore in Sydney. The next audit should look at papers received vs claimed delivery. I guess now delivery is about as reliable as the editorial.
Still don’t understand this obsession with closed garden platforms. Ipads are not ubiquitous, they’re a highly niche product.
Why bother with them at all when HTML5 can reach any device….?
you can’t be serious Groucho !!! the Oz’s editorial is 100% reliable. Consistently delivering Rupert’s right wing agenda day in, day out. Here’s a snapshot of their view of the world:
Youth: Don’t buy print: Bad
Unemployed: See youth
Environment: The wha ?
ALP: Lucifer incarnate
LNP: Saints
Abbott: “Our Boy”
Cross media ownership: The payoff
@Bec – ipads aren’t really niche anymore. Somewhere between 30-40% of australians now have an ipad (depending on whose numbers you believe) and this is expected to rise to around 50% in a year or so. But most news sites still get the bulk of their traffic via web rather than via apps — even amongst tablet users — although engagement levels amongst app users is much higher than it is for web users
Sorry, correction to my earlier comment. I should have said that TABLET penetration is now 40%. ipads are a subset of this.