Going Up! Newspapers and the internet

“The Times” is set to end its free online service. It’s a gamble, but for readers in places like Mallorca, who might otherwise pay an exorbitant price for the daily paper, two quid a week is extremely good value. Not that this is necessarily the point. Free should be free, say many, and a cover price for the online version will simply cause readers to go elsewhere. We’ll see. The new site is actually pretty good.

The “Diario de Mallorca” is not “The Times”, nothing like it of course. But there is something interesting about this paper. It has a good website – free – which has enjoyed increased traffic recently. At the same time, the printed version has also increased its circulation. Its main competitor, “Ultima Hora”, has experienced a decline in circulation, and its website is not as good but is improving. Of daily papers in Spain with a circulation over 10,000 (not huge admittedly), the “Diario” has registered the second greatest increase in physical circulation among the 39 papers with circulation over this number.

On the face of it, the two increases seem illogical. As the website beefs up its traffic, so, you would think, the circulation of printed version would decrease. So how to explain the apparent contradiction, as evidenced by the “Diario”? Maybe it’s all the free publicity I give it, but probably not. Perhaps it has something to do with its local nature. Despite the plans by “The Times” to create its own online “community”, it is, like all big papers, rather removed. A paper like the “Diario” isn’t. There is a far greater sense of reader “ownership” of the different formats; they are complementary, even if their content is basically the same.

I confess that I am casting around to find a reason. I don’t know the answer. But answer there must be, and if the experience of the “Diario” is echoed elsewhere, the doomsday predictions for newspapers and/or their websites would not hold up. What will be interesting is whether the circulation and the site traffic continue to increase. If they do, then someone should try and discover the paper’s secret. I should be at the paper’s offices today, so maybe I’ll ask.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.