back to article Get 'em out for the... readers: The Sun scraps its online paywall

Rupert Murdoch's flagship British tabloid, The Sun, is to abandon its paywall in search of greater web traffic as it seeks to compete with big online news hitters such as the Daily Mail. According to the Guardian, the move was set to be officially announced on Friday and implemented by the end of November. Back in July 2013, …

  1. Blank-Reg
    Facepalm

    As has been often commented on this esteemed organ, unless your content is either:

    a) Original

    b) Compelling

    c) Humourous

    then readers aren't going to fork out for a subscription. Especially to the Sun which is, essentially, little more than a comic and is none of the above.

    1. dogged

      All of which makes it disappointing that I still can't read Private Eye (with a subscription) online.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        disappointing that I still can't read Private Eye (with a subscription) online.

        I thought the physical presentation of Eye was part of the core proposition. Like you, I am a man of high literature, although my preference is Viz. That too suffers from the same challenge of the paper copy being the real McCoy, and the screen version not quite making the grade.

        1. dogged

          > I thought the physical presentation of Eye was part of the core proposition.

          Indeed but I don't subscribe because I move around a lot (contracting) so it would be nice to be able to catch up on what I've missed online.

          Anyway, the medium is a challenge for a designer. Not me, I don't do design. But a designer. A good one, preferably.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      On a side note, the BBC is running this story and it links to an article reporting it in the FT, which by hilarious irony is itself behind a paywall so you can't read it.

      BBC story

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34679817

      FT link

      http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dbc792ee-7efc-11e5-98fb-5a6d4728f74e.html#axzz3q3tfyRCp

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Its scandalous!

      Scandalous indeed that not enough people are willing to pay for their own brainwashing!

      I mean, they pay to have their hair washed too, no?

      they willingly pay for all sorts of minor services...

      But getting their brain washed isn't worth some cash to them?

      Poor mainstream media. I guess you'll need to go asking for money at your annual Bilderberger meeting. No worries, they're extremely well financed and they rely on you distorting everything and keeping people's minds on one fool's errand after another.

      1. P. Lee

        Re: Its scandalous!

        Reduced supply is what happens when you invoice your suppliers to deliver to your warehouse.

        Is there third-party advertising? Then you are not the customer.

        In the physical realm I suspect prices work because you don't go out to buy the Sun, you get a pack of cigarettes and it almost comes free with them.

        As for the proxy-log popularity of the Mail, could it be due to their infinite length webpages skewing the results?

    4. jonathanb Silver badge

      The main criteria is whether or not you can claim the subscription on company expenses. That is why the Financial Times's paywall works.

  2. Wupspups
    Joke

    My mum told me "Never look at the Sun!"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You won't go blind, just end up with hairy palms and a 75% drop in IQ.

  3. Magnus_Pym

    Woop-de-do

    Could give a toss about that rag I just hope it doesn't mean that Murdock will laying some cash on Google et al to promote his drivel organ in the result rankings in a pathetic attempt to drive traffic back.

    1. Lamont Cranston

      Re: Woop-de-do

      No one reading at a grown-up level gives a toss about The Sun. That such a significant brand is having to climb out from behind its paywall is interesting, however.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Woop-de-do

        No one reading at a grown-up level gives a toss about The Sun

        That's actually the one thing they could care about.

        (badum tisssh etc)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    News UK management

    Just a bunch of tits.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Fans of the racy Page 3 feature will probably be disappointed to learn that Lucy from Daventry and her skimpily clad pals will be placed on an entirely separate website. In the interests of accurate reporting, your correspondent visited said website...

    Pics or it didn't happen

    B-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      (.)(.)

      "(The post is required, and must contain letters.)" Indeed, it does now.

      1. Anonymous Coward
  6. simonb_london

    Nationalise it

    Just nationalise News International in the UK. That'll fix Murdock. Or at least the prospect will make him panic...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seem to remember Murdoch's real gripe was that with the BBC providing so much internet news content for free that his rag couldn't compete.

    I guess he thinks its going to be OK now that he has successfully paid the Tory party enough to castrate the BBC...

    I noticed though a little while back that my proxy logs showed quite a change in the most popular news website and that now the Daily Mail website is by far the most hit from our large organisation.... It surprised me somewhat and since then I have been rather concerned about the obvious brain drain going on here as everyone sups from the fountain of the Daily Heil.

    Then again, looking at the state of the company, it figures...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "....as everyone sups from the fountain of the Daily Heil."

      We reached out (#) to the Daily Fail for their response to this alleged slight on their character. Their spokesman- a Mr H Harmsworth- responded "Hurrah for the blackshirts!" (##)

      (#) Can anyone please explain why this horrid PR-esque phrase seems to be replacing "contacted" or "attempted to contact" in everyday use? I've seen people- rather unconvincingly- try to argue that it's not exactly the same thing, but it just sounds like fake-touchy-feely BS to me. Understandable coming from PR weasels, less so from supposedly impartial journalists.

      (##) Yeah, I know, don't care... "The Daily Express was worse" isn't saying much ;-P

      1. Quortney Fortensplibe

        Reached Out

        Glad it's not just me. Every time I see that phrase I feel like 'reaching out' and punching whoever wrote it in the face.

        [But I'm reaching out to you with an upvote]

        1. hplasm
          Coat

          Re: Reached Out

          Reminds me of the Depeche Mode hit - 'Reach out and Punch Face'

      2. Blank-Reg
        Headmaster

        Agreed. "Reached out to" sounds like it should form part of a complaint against a pervert whilst reporting them to the police.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Now if only people would wise up and stop subscribing to SKY maybe we can get sports* FTA again.

    *I don't include football, it's great it is behind a paywall and off most screens.

  9. Dalek Dave

    The Daily Telegraph has a wall too, but it takes about 3 seconds to bypass it.

    In fact I have a button so that when I hit the Article Limit, I push my button and Hey Presto...start over from scratch again.

    Hopefully they will see the writing on the wall for paid for news.

    1. Kevin Johnston

      I think that is not so much a Wall as a Stile....looks like a fence but there is a simple two step process to get over it.

    2. paulf
      Devil

      There's not much worth paying for behind the Daily Hello-graph's pay-wind-break; unless you enjoy reading rehashed press releases peppered with a lack of Sub-editing that would make the Grauniad blush!

      Pic - Murdoch.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not really, even Mr H Crane wouldn't do a pun *this* crap...

      @Dalek Dave; I think what you meant to say was

      "Hopefully they will see the writing...."

      (Puts on sunglasses)

      "...on the paywall"

      YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "The Daily Telegraph has a wall too, but it takes about 3 seconds to bypass it."

      The DT subscription is now being touted for £12 rather than the previous £6. As long as the BBC, Independent, and Grauniad are not behind paywalls then the DT no longer has enough broadsheet gravitas to be worth coin of the realm.

      Unfortunately the Independent has gone for a style change that crams a page full of pictures and article headers that is just too much. Looks and loads even worse than the re-styled Grauniad.

      1. Primus Secundus Tertius

        The DT is overloaded with ads, both staic and video. It is an insult that they expect us to pay for all that padding. If anything, the advertisers should be paying us!

        1. 080

          uBlock chops out most of the crap from the DT site, the slowest loading of any UK paper. But at least it works unlike their Tablet App. Still it's only £5 a month if you complain enough.

      2. RegGuy1 Silver badge

        DT -- age discrimination?

        Well the DT is normally read by the over 75s.

        Maybe the silver surfers are Internet savvy enough to pull out their wallets and pay the £12 ('hey, what's £12, we've never had it so good. My pension's going up at least 2.5% again'), but not tech savvy enough to understand how to get round it.

        So I'd give the DT another 10 years or so before their cash-cow-audience dies off.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        the Independent ........ Looks and loads even worse than the re-styled Grauniad.

        That, Sir, is not possible. The Graun has degenerated into a sort of amateur-curated news aggregating blog (although I don't mind, if that's what they want to do with it).

        The Indy is a far more painful loss. Remember at launch, it was a fresh voice, a broadsheet with gravitas and indeed an independent voice. Now it's just another shitty tabloid, owned by a Russian oligarch.

        1. Chris Parsons

          The Indy

          Couldn't agree more, Ledswinger. It was once a fine paper, now largely drivel. I am occasionally amused by the paid Russian shills who promote Putin as a man of love and peace, but other than that, it's the Eye and the Economist from now on.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Free, but...

    Probably still not many hits from the L postcode area!

    1. paulf
      Devil

      Re: Free, but...

      Even less likely with Kelvin MacKenzie's recent column suggesting he become Lord Kelv of Anfield (at the end):

      http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/suncolumnists/6705355/Kelvin-Mackenzie-says-brave-Paul-Settle-who-forced-Tom-Watson-to-say-sorry-shouldnt-go-unnoticed.html

  11. Frederic Bloggs

    Statistics...

    GCSE Statistics Paper Question

    A "quality" newspaper recently asserted that: in 2013 another "newspaper" had 30 million audited users per month. But today, that "newspaper" now has 1 million readers per day.

    Please tick one only one answer:

    * The "newspaper" has 96% fewer readers today than in 2013.

    * The "newspaper" has roughly the same number of readers per day.

    * The "Grauniad" has a maths problem as well as all the others it's famous for.

    1. DavCrav

      Re: Statistics...

      "The "Grauniad" has a maths problem as well as all the others it's famous for."

      It isn't a particularly great bit of reporting on their part, but since the Sun is behind a paywall, we can be reasonably sure that the million people today are the same million people tomorrow. So the unique monthly visitors are going to be roughly a million. So the writing is terrible, but the point is largely accurate.

      1. dogged

        Re: Statistics...

        > the writing is terrible

        Yes, it's the Grauniad.

        1. Peter2 Silver badge

          Re: Statistics...

          To be fair, the standard of writing & more importantly reporting in all newspapers is absurdly low compared to historical norms. Look at a historic newspaper from a hundred years ago and see the difference. It's profoundly shocking, and frankly I think that they all deserve to go out of business given how poor the reporting is.

          1. Quortney Fortensplibe

            Re: Statistics...

            Too true. I've lost count of the number of basic schoolboy English errors I've spotted in even the supposedly high-brow broadsheet newspapers; confusion between 'there', 'they're' and 'their', confusion between 'your' and 'you're', 'drawers' spelt as 'draws', 'brakes' spelt as 'breaks', greengrocers' apostrophes... and so on.

            And that's before you even consider the mangled sentence structure, which often makes headlines read as jokes, or the fact that most journalists writing today [El Reg's included] seem unable to find the preference which sets their spell-checker language to UK English and, consequently, churn out prose in a mixture of American and UK English —often spelling the same word both ways, in the same paragraph.

            1. Primus Secundus Tertius

              Re: Statistics...

              Many stories appear to have been dictated into a "voice recgnition" system, with no subsequent checking by anyone who understands language.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Statistics...

            Yes, but all newspapers have got rid of their sub-editors. So there is no one to double check their grandma.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Statistics...

              ...or check their swelling.

          3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Statistics...

            "Look at a historic newspaper from a hundred years ago and see the difference."

            Yeah, funny that. A 100 years ago newspapers were cheap and they had a huge staff, reporters all over the place, copy editors, sub editors, proof readers and a budget for proper investigative journalism. In some cases they made huge profits for their owners too. You'd almost think there was no competition for news reporting back then.

            The point about spell checkers, language selection and grammar checkers is well taken though.

  12. frank ly

    Innacurate reporting

    I just tried a text and image serach for "Lucy from Daventry" and El Reg is the only site that has a hit. So, how do I get to see the pictures? If this is one of the gold badge members only things, I shall cancel my subscription.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Innacurate reporting

      Try same search for Lucy V (not sure if she is from Daventry or not (NSFW))

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Innacurate reporting

      You need to search for "Kelly from Daventry" ... its not Lucy today...

      /duck

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lets hope they don't un-paywall The Times - it's the only newspaper where the comments are civil and informed, because the cost keeps the extremists out ( although lots of lefties seemed to infiltrate during the Labour leadership election and haven't left yet, but I'm sure they will eventually ).

    1. x 7

      but the Times IS a lefty newspaper

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "but the Times IS a lefty newspaper"

        You're either a troll or a member of the US Republican Party.

        1. James O'Shea

          "You're either a troll or a member of the US Republican Party."

          There's a difference?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Newspaper websites

    How's the Guardian doing on website popularity?

    Does it still have a better ratio of website viewers to paper circulation than the bigger circulation tabloids? Can't find anything on subject since 2011 when it was up there with MailOnline although its paper sales were about 1/10 those of Daily Mail.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Newspaper websites

      September figures here:

      http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/website-abcs-metro-freefall-sun-drops-below-express-mirror-blames-jennifer-lawrence-no-yearly-growth

      BUT... You have to take the "daily users" figure with a huge pinch of salt...

      Little known fact that the figure includes use of the various newspapers apps - which pull down content automatically even if that content is not read. Thus if you've downloaded, say, the Daily Mail app on your mobile device, even if you've never used it, it will still be downloading content and still counting you (or your device) in their figures.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Newspaper websites

      Here you go, funnily enough from a page on the Guardian's website:

      http://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2015/feb/19/guardian-reports-record-traffic-to-start-2015

      Basically,

      Monthly unique browsers 121,733,045

      Monthly page views:762.8M

      Daily average unique browsers:7M

      By comparison, the paper Guardian is about 185k copies per day, the Sun is just under 2 million.

      The really interesting thing with newspaper actual paper circulation vs their websites is that the websites are more popular because of two factors:

      1) Printed stuff is like old hat dude

      2) The websites are free - not just the paper's own websites but if not that particular one, then any of hundreds others. Free is the best price for a consumer and price is king even at the cost of service quality (that price is king is well known in the IT world, few ever pay for quality!)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Newspaper websites

        The really interesting thing with newspaper actual paper circulation vs their websites is that the websites are more popular because of two factors:

        Don't forget international reach. I suspect that the browser stats include a heck of a lot of international traffic from Oz and the US, to judge by both the content that the Graun hosts and some of the comments.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Newspaper websites

          "[...] from Oz and the US, to judge by both the content that the Graun hosts and some of the comments.[...]

          Any article in the Grauniad, Indy, or DT on improving sex education, gender equality, or stopping religious interference in lawmaking is guaranteed to attract many negative and often vitriolic comments from people in the USA. It's almost as if there is an organised lobby trying to influence British society in those areas.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Newspaper websites

      At least the Guardian still knocks out the free top quality crosswords (Azed, Everyman, and all the daily puzzles, plus a lot more). That is pretty good in today's Internet world:

      Crosswords

      1. graeme leggett Silver badge

        Re: Newspaper websites

        I quite liked the Mail's puzzle section and sunday general knowledge crossword. Fortunately I wasn't paying for the paper at the time, and my cynic and sceptic filters were fully activated before looking at the other pages.

  15. DavCrav

    "The Sun scraps its online paywall"

    and nothing of value was gained.

    1. The First Dave

      Re: "The Sun scraps its online paywall"

      On an IT angle, why is "taking down the paywall" going to take so long?

      1. jonathanb Silver badge

        Re: "The Sun scraps its online paywall"

        If they take it down today, they have to refund all the subscriptions, take it down next month and they can collect next month's subscription up to the day the wall comes down. Processing all the refunds, putting negative sales figures on the MOSS return and trying to get VAT refunds from all the EU countries they sell to would be a major hassle.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "The Sun scraps its online paywall"

        "On an IT angle, why is "taking down the paywall" going to take so long?"

        From a strictly IT angle they'll have to test any changes properly.

        From a business point of view, do they for example combine subscriptions to the Sun and their other publications into one monthly fee? If so, there are no doubt IT changes to be tested properly before implementation.

        Standard change management as far as that goes. If I were a subscriber I'd be watching my monthly statements very carefully indeed to ensure they don't simply carry on charging when they shouldn't.

  16. Jim99

    I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

    Okay, so many people disagree with his politics, as do I on the whole, but Britain has lots of newspapers, representing a range of viewpoints, so there is something for all tastes. Many people do agree with the Sun's political stance (unless you really believe the public are so daft that they let newspapers tell them what to think) and voluntarily spend their hard-earned money on buying it. I find it difficult to object to that.

    Murdoch has kept lossmaking papers going (I heard the Times was losing £30m a year not so long ago) that might have otherwise shut (or been taken over by another yet-sleazier billionaire, equally as unlikely to be sympathetic to lefty causes, and maybe, God forbid, Russian). Many of the worst behaviour the Murdoch papers are accused of (e.g. listening to people's voicemail) were also done by Mirror Group papers, and the absolute worst offences (deleting messages on Milly Dowler's phone after she disappeared) turned out not actually to have happened. If News International phone hacking had revealed Jimmy Savile's crimes back in 2001, would we all feel so aggreived about it now?

    1. dogged

      Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

      > Many people do agree with the Sun's political stance (unless you really believe the public are so daft that they let newspapers tell them what to think) and voluntarily spend their hard-earned money on buying it. I find it difficult to object to that.

      Many more want something they can gain all content from during a ten minute bog break - the Sun serves this purpose perfectly. It also has the sports pages. If it didn't, it wouldn't sell at all.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

        "Many more want something they can gain all content from during a ten minute bog break - the Sun serves this purpose perfectly.

        And in more way than one!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

      "but Britain has lots of newspapers, representing a range of viewpoints"

      Does it?

      There may be quite a few with varying degrees of right wing neo-con views, but all viewpoints left are much less than 'lots'. I'm having difficulty getting the count of left wing, mainstream newspapers above one, maybe two if I count the Morning Star.

      1. Jim99

        Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

        "Does it?

        There may be quite a few with varying degrees of right wing neo-con views, but all viewpoints left are much less than 'lots'. I'm having difficulty getting the count of left wing, mainstream newspapers above one, maybe two if I count the Morning Star."

        I can think of no country of Britain's size with anywhere near as many daily national newspapers. The Mirror, Guardian and Independent are generally left-of-centre. Several others are politically very balanced: the Financial Times publishes a range of opinion and can be surprisingly left-wing in its editorials (Noam Chomsky himself has said you are best advised to go to the business press for proper unbiased reporting). Metro is very balanced indeed in its opinion sections like the letters pages. There are lefty weeklies (e.g. New Statesman). And behind it all sits the scrupulously-unbiased BBC which keeps everyone else honest.

        There seems plenty of choice to me.

        1. x 7

          Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

          "And behind it all sits the scrupulously-unbiased BBC which keeps everyone else honest."

          I just nearly choked on my G & T reading that absolute howler. You owe me a new laptop keyboard and screen as a result

          BBC.....bunch of left wing money grabbing effete intellectual pansies

          1. Stuart 22

            Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

            "BBC.....bunch of left wing money grabbing effete intellectual pansies"

            Oh come on. Its been years since Gardeners World featured a decent pansy. Unless you know something about Nigel that I don't ...

        2. graeme leggett Silver badge

          Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

          Plenty of choice, but the papers that cover the small-c conservative to full Conservative and Little Englander viewpoints are the ones that dominate in volume.

      2. Col_Panek

        Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

        The New York Times publishes in your language. Sort of.

        That oughta be lefty enough for anyone.

    3. Just Enough
      Childcatcher

      Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

      "Many people do agree with the Sun's political stance"

      You flatter it. The Sun does not have a political stance. It has a "what's best for News International" stance. Everything beyond that is just dressing to sell it to the readers.

      "If News International phone hacking had revealed Jimmy Savile's crimes back in 2001, would we all feel so aggreived about it now?"

      Are you suggesting that mobile phone hacking would have been seen as ok, or maybe just a bit naughty, if it had brought to light Savile's activities, which it didn't, cos "peedo!" trumps all? That's perilously close to the "if you have nothing to hide" argument, just with added "think of the children!"

      1. Jim99

        Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

        I am not defending phone hacking. I think evesdropping on celebrity tittle tattle is pathetic, and those who infringe those people's privacy should be prepared to face punishment. But there must be some situations where journos listening to voicemail messages, whilst illegal, would have been in the public interest, and where that would be a legitimate defence in any prosection? Lets say it revealed a government minister or general took a £1m bung in a defence procurement? Or lets say it meant Savile had been put in prison fifteen years ago. Clearly any journalist using a public interest defence would have to have behaved responsibly; they can't start messing round in crimes that the police are investigating. But that the British tabloids could not find the truth about Savile while he was alive, despite all the evidence out there, does not indicate to me a press that is out of control.

    4. octomancer
      Devil

      Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

      Personally, among the reasons I despise that evil, wrinkled testicle of a man are:

      1. Margaret Thatcher.

      The deal was that she relaxed laws governing monopoly in the media in exchange for him printing only favourable stories about the tories. This alone would make him first up against the wall if I were in charge of the revolution.

      2. The same slimeball approach to corporate taxation as the other slimeballs.

      3. I have to pay if I want to watch cricket (and some of the F1) live.

    5. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

      For starters because he is a tax-dodgeing opportunist. Just my 2 cents.

      1. Wilseus

        Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

        "For starters because he is a tax-dodgeing opportunist. Just my 2 cents."

        Just like the owners of the Guardian then.

    6. viscount

      Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

      I am not sure he is "hated" all that widely: the left-wing commentariat make a disproportionate noise.

      However, I for one for dislike his empire: I think it is bad for our democracy when one man has so much power over so many eyeballs in print, online and on TV.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

        I am not sure he is "hated" all that widely: the left-wing commentariat make a disproportionate noise.

        Don't be so judgmental! As somebody far enough to the right to despise David Cameron as a ghastly plutocratic liberal, could I (again) put on record that I hate Turdoch?

        And not just the wrinkly old scrote himself, but his ghastly offspring, and his ghastly editorial and management staff.

        1. x 7

          Re: I've never understood why Murdoch is so hated

          why is Murdoch hated?

          1) for dominating so much of the western press (especially the english language press) that he has the ability to dominate, browbeat and bully governments into following his orders

          2) by the insidious insertion of himself and his staff into close relationships with our politicians - for instance see the links between Rebekah Brooks and Cameron

          3) Simply for removing so much content from free to view TV to premium content channels, especially sport so depriving the average viewer of a large part of watchable TV

          4) For the way Sky has encouraged the separation from reality of TV stars and professional athletes by creating artificial pay scales which turn unskilled nonentities into highly paid arrogant twats

          5) For forcing up the entry costs of sports events to the point where a football match is close to unaffordable. Sky has created such a false sense of elevated value among professional sportsmen that even the mediocre expect phenomenal salaries and appearance fees.

          6) For encouraging the development of so much low quality tat on TV - the brain-numbing advertising and sex channels, the "reality" crapshows, which distract viewers from reality

  17. thomas k

    What does Cyber Monday have to do with anything?

    Does Ms. Brooks think those retail sales will be driven by ads viewed on the newly-free Sun website?

  18. This post has been deleted by its author

  19. PassiveSmoking

    30 million readers per month != 1 million readers per day?

    That looks more like a 0% decrease to me than a 96% decrease. Should they both be month or day?

    1. dogged

      Re: 30 million readers per month != 1 million readers per day?

      I think it was 30 million unique users per month. It's unlikely that users who pay for a subscription will only read a website one day per month.

  20. Dr_N

    Phone Hacking ... Hilsborough ...

    And people still read it?

    1. Steven 1

      Re: Phone Hacking ... Hilsborough ...

      Indeed.

      I'm sure I'm not alone in the fact I wouldn't use that shit rag to wipe my arse with!!

      Been a while since I was last in Liverpool but is it still a case that no newsagents would sell it?

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: Phone Hacking ... Hilsborough ...

      "And people still read it?"

      As The Doctors is fond of saying, "Pah, you humans have an amazing capacity to forget" in reference to the many alien invasions we have suffered, some even broadcast live on TV news.

  21. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
    Pint

    Attaboy

    "Fans of the racy Page 3 feature will probably be disappointed to learn that Lucy from Daventry and her skimpily clad pals will be placed on an entirely separate website. In the interests of accurate reporting, your correspondent visited said website and can confirm that, at the time of writing, you still have to hand over your hard-earned beer tokens to see something you can easily get with 10 seconds spent on Google image search."

    I for one am glad that El Reg dosn't shy away from hard-hitting, devil-may-care investigative journalism and go the extra mile to dig out the relevant news for it's readers, even at great personal risk. Have a pint.

    BTW: link works (had to scale down NoScript in order to see anything), but no sign of a paywall.

  22. Slx

    People paid to read it ?!!!?!

  23. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Gimp

    10 seconds spent on Google image search

    I take that the "hero" image is our intrepid reporter, the hard nosed, hard bitten, dyed in the wool journalist who just can't quite get the hang of this new fangled computery stuff yet. Can't you get the YTS boy to help you speed up your searches? 10 whole seconds to find soft core core porn? Pah!

    1. Wensleydale Cheese

      Re: 10 seconds spent on Google image search

      "10 whole seconds to find soft core core porn? Pah!"

      You've got it wrong.

      You may be after instant gratification, but a proper reporter has to verify his sources, for example by following the links to check that they do indeed contain what their descriptions purport to offer.

  24. razorfishsl

    Those scumbags over at the 'mail' have started to enable auto 'click' and auto play on adverts......

    The DM is not about news , it is about leveraging SEO and making as much money as possible.

  25. robertsgt40

    Rupert is slowly figuring out people won't pay to be lied to. Duh

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