As reported on Media Guardian, Trinity Mirror is planning several specialist sites – namely ‘MirrorFootball’ and a 3am.co.uk gossip site – for which it will charge online. Sly Bailey, Trinity Mirror CEO, said that there was little point charging for news content when it was offered, and will continue to be offered, by the BBC were free. Similar sentiments were offered by Peter Morrell, Head of Multimedia at Media Wales, when Fee or Free spoke to him recently.
Bailey continued:
The next launches you’re seeing from Trinity Mirror are on August 6, MirrorFootball.co.uk, taking us in to an area where we do have unique content in the form of our archive, and developing an engaged audience who are passionate about that, that is more definable than a general news audience … thinking over time about how we might develop audience and what the pay model might be over time.
The Times has it’s crossword, the FT it’s financial reporting – what is the specialist content and tools offered by other papers? It appears the debate is shifting from charging for news, to charging for high quality, unique content and services that an outlet can offer.
Bailey’s latest comments come after a fall in profits at Trinity Mirror, though she also considered the industry to have hit the financial bottom of the advertising slump.
Posted by kylechristie 
kylechristie
Fee or Free? 