BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show today broadcast an interview with the Times’ editor James Harding following yesterday’s release of figures for the Times and Sunday Times paywalls.
When asked if there is a ‘plan B’, Harding said while it was a reasonable question, he thought it was too early to be asking it.
It’s really early days. We sold newspapers in print for 225 years, we continued to do that, we’ve sold newspapers on screen for four months. What we’ve been encouraged by is the fact that they’re selling, our customers really like them and as a result of that we as the Times are growing. I think it would be a little early for us to start thinking to ourselves about plan Bs and alternatives.
We have to keep on developing and re-developing, inventing and re-inventing what we do because the reality is that the technologies and what they can do are changing around us all the time.