BANDIT Politely Asks: What Are The Times and Mr. Murdoch Doing?

The Times: Rest In Pieces!

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May 21, 2010, 12:01 ET

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, May 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Times will have changed from June 1st, 2010 (pardon the pun).

The short story? One of the world's most famous newspapers and its immensely powerful owner are about to follow through with a very very dumb strategic decision.

"London, 26 March 2010 – News International today announces that The Times and The Sunday Times will start charging for access to their digital journalism in June using a pricing model that is simple and affordable."

John Witheroe, Editor of The Times, rather desperately said the following during a recent debate: "The point of [charging online subscriptions] is to make money so we can invest in journalism."

He has also been quoted as saying: "Personally, I never thought that this would be a viable financial model and we do need viable financial models because journalism is tremendously expensive."

Really? Well….tough! You can't live without them, and you can't afford to pay for them. It's a dilemma we understand, so maybe you so try to figure out why that is, instead of doing something really stupid…like you just did!

Read the full blog post here: http://thisisbandit.com/?p=9090

The BANDIT Blog: www.thisisbandit.com/?page_id=216

SOURCE BANDIT