'Irish Times' to start charging website readers

Irish Times building

Gavin McLoughlin

'The Irish Times' will probably start charging people to read stories on its website next year, the newspaper said yesterday. The publisher previously experimented with a so-called paywall but later dropped it.

"We want to begin to build what I call content-led digital revenues, and we think that paywall or subscription-led revenue needs to form a part of that," managing director Liam Kavanagh told the Irish Independent.

"Part of what we are doing alongside it is to build the audience online, because we had a paywall in the past, it wasn't a paywall that could sustain long-term growing digital revenues," he said.

"I suppose that's the difference in this case; that we want it to be sustainable and have an ability to grow and develop as a source of revenue for 'The Irish Times' for the longer term."

Mr Kavanagh said the "most likely" plan for the paywall is to allow readers to view a certain amount of free material before paying.

The company behind 'The Irish Times' also said it made a profit of €4.8m in 2013 after losing almost €800,000 in 2012.

Group turnover, excluding joint ventures, rose 3.6pc to €84.4m. "Digital audiences and revenues continued to grow and contract printing revenue increased strongly due to the acquisition of new print contracts," the firm's directors' report for 2013 said.

'The Irish Times' has been printing titles including the 'Irish Examiner' and the 'Evening Echo' since media group Thomas Crosbie Holdings (TCH) went into receivership last year.

Circulation revenue fell 5pc as the publisher sold fewer newspapers, while print advertising revenue tumbled by 4.3pc.