News International’s (NI) decision to restrict access to the websites of its newspapers on a subscription basis has been one of the major stories of media and marketing news over the past year. As online media has eaten into readership levels and advertising revenue for traditional news media, the decision to place previously freely available content behind a paywall attracted high levels of attention from all corners of the media and marketing world.

Whilst Rupert Murdoch, president of NI and parent company NewsCorp, championed the new strategy as a “new business model for the internet” many people were dubious about its prospects. To critics of the plan, placing the entire Times and Sunday Times websites behind the paywall was a dangerous move in NewsCorp’s dispute with Google and other web companies.

Whilst a similar system has been in place for The Wall Street Journal, also owned by Murdoch and read by 1.1m paying subscribers, many were doubtful that the success could be replicated.

These critics may have been correct in their doubts. According to Marketing Magazine, figures from internet analytics company ComScore reveal that The Times and the Sunday edition websites have lost over 1 million unique users since introducing the paywall system.

In June, NI made it compulsory for visitors to thetimes.co.uk and thesundaytimes.co.uk to register in order to view content on the sites. In July, it began charging for access, creating the vaunted ‘paywall’ system championed by Murdoch throughout much of 2009.

Earlier this month, Rupert Murdoch refuted claims by famed American journalist Michael Wolff that the paywalled websites were an “empty world”, with no new subscribers and with no desire from existing subscribers to go online. Speaking to his paper The Australian, Murdoch said that “subscriber levels are strong. We are witnessing the start of a new business model for the internet.”

Yet since May, the number of unique visitors to both websites has fallen from 2.79m to 1.61m in July. As News International has previously indicated it will be extending the paywall system across its publication’s websites – and as The Times was one of the most popular sites across the company’s portfolio – these figures may give pause to the Murdoch media empire’s plans for online content. Without user traffic, the company may find it harder and harder to attract online advertising revenue even as traditional print revenues continue to underperform.

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