Sunday Times

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 1:36pm on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

In the November 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Wolff writes about a turf war involving the Times of London and the Sunday Times:

"The Times of London and The Sunday Times, historically separate papers, have long shared a Web site, controlled, to the consternation of the Sunday editor, by the daily. The decision (after a long political tug-of-war) to separate the two suddenly became an opportunity in the new Murdoch logic of making people pay. Because The Sunday Times has not had a Web site before, it would not, if it launched one with a pay wall, lose any users. Everybody who subscribed would therefore be a plus.

In Murdoch-think, there is, too, the magic of the Sunday paper. Murdoch believes people can’t do without a Sunday paper. (Two years ago, he personally supervised the makeover of the Sunday New York Post.) Ipso facto, if people can’t live without their Sunday paper, then they’ll buy it on the newsstand or pay for it online—no matter that it comes out once a week and the Web is a minute-by-minute medium."

The full story:
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2009/11/michael-wolff-200911?printable=true