The Irish Times will become the first Irish national daily to introduce a metered subscription for online content.
Do you get your hard news from The Irish Times online? If so you better be prepared to pay for a subscription to use the entire site as a paywall will be implemented from February 23.
That means you’ll have to pain at least €12 per month for the standard package, which gives readers unlimited access to the site on up to three devices.
According to The Irish Times: “[The standard subscription] includes full access to the archives of The Irish Times, dating back to 1859, as well as the digital versions of the Simplex and Crosaire crosswords, invitations to subscriber-only events, eBooks and special offers. It also includes IT Sunday, a new subscriber-only digital newsletter.”
So does this mean we won’t be seeing The Irish Times unless we cough up the fee? Well, not exactly…
“Readers will continue to be able to browse irishtimes.com and read up to 10 articles every week on any one computer or device. This means many online readers who decide not to subscribe will be unaffected by the change”, the paper reports.
There are two other subscriptions available that will cost either €20 or €50 per month, depending on which one you choose.
The site will, however, be “opened up” on occasion with the paywall turned off “in the event of national crises” or “weather emergencies…”
The move is intended to ‘support investment in journalism’, according to the paper’s editor Kevin O’Sullivan.
You can find out more about the subscriptions and how to sign up over on The Irish Times website.
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