LT Website in Paywall Shocker!

[Stuart]

Looks as though the LT has taken the decision to set up a paywall for online access, moving away from the ad-driven model. Such a poor quality rag, it will have to seriously up its game in terms of, y’know, actual news if it wants to stay in business. Maybe replace ‘reporters’ with proper journalists, who knows...

First they took the journalism out of the newspaper, then the newspaper out of the town, now they are taking the entire brand. I won’t by that Newsquest Manc rubbish in print, I certainly won’t be paying for it as pixels - especially in the era of the great GDPR con. Blackburn’s “news” managed from Bolton!

RIP Lancashire (Evening) Telegraph. Keeping Blackburn folk in the dark since May 2000 and now locked out.

P.S. Did you spot it? Your £5 per month will get you “advert light” content. Not ad-free, ad-light!!

[chaddyrovers]

 

No one is going to pay to read it

Edited April 11, 2020 by chaddyrovers

[Mattyblue]

People will pay for quality journalism online. A good number of news outlets are making a good fist of it.

However, for the LT? Not a chance, their traffic will fall off a cliff.

 

[AllRoverAsia]

Pay to read Waggotts quotes of wisdom?

I somehow doubt it.

[davulsukur]

Is that register and get 20 more free articles? If that's in a month, it would probably be enough anyway (for Rovers news)

[K-Hod]

All the people that comment on every article like ‘Jack The Lad From Wrexham’ will be fuming....

£5 a month? In a bit, LT!

[Rogerb]

Consequence of advertising revenue's falling off a cliff. Case of trying to bleed more coin out of a dwindling readership is waggott on the board?

[Stuart]

Just now, Rogerb said:

Consequence of advertising revenue's falling off a cliff. Case of trying to bleed more coin out of a dwindling readership is waggott on the board?

Ha! I didn’t even think of that. Mirrors perfectly.

[Gone to seed]

It was already something of an ordeal waiting ages for the chronically news-light pages of the LET / thisislancashire (aka Bolton evening news) to load. This move to a paywall oriented business model should, with any luck, see off any pretence that there is any interest in covering local interest stories (including, sadly, our beloved Rovers) and lead directly to the death of whatever remained of the local newspaper many of us grew up with.

Oh for the days of the 'Sports Pink' on a Saturday evening. Oh too for the coverage of local phenomena such as the 'rampaging car based cabbage-thrower' and its role as a fulcrum of East Lancs Life (how many of us bought our first cars through the LET I wonder)?

RIP The Lancashire Evening Telegraph. Local journalism is dead. Long live local news! In the words of Joni Mitchell,

" They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone"

[J*B]

Please take out. 

[Gone to seed]

?

2 minutes ago, J*B said:

Please take out. 

?

[Stuart]

1 hour ago, WIR Second Coming said:

?

?

During the height of the anti-Venkys feeling and ‘us and them’ beteeen fans and club (around the time of Kean/Shebby/Aggers/Shelvey) it was widely believed that the LT sent in its stories to ‘the club’ for... let’s say.. comment (rather than approval).

In one article the editor, seemingly, hadn’t spotted that ‘someone’ had scribed “please take out” - presumably next to a line that ‘the club’ wanted removing fro the article. Infamously, and to my recollection, the line “please take out” made it to print! (Or maybe it was leaked - I can’t remember 100%).

Edited April 12, 2020 by Stuart

[Gone to seed]

Brilliant Stuart! I vaguely recollect the incident, though these days I think most of what I remember is a bit vague !

[Blue blood]

1 hour ago, Stuart said:

During the height of the anti-Venkys feeling and ‘us and them’ beteeen fans and club (around the time of Kean/Shebby/Aggers/Shelvey) it was widely believed that the LT sent in its stories to ‘the club’ for... let’s say.. comment (rather than approval).

In one article the editor, seemingly, hadn’t spotted that ‘someone’ had scribed “please take out” - presumably next to a line that ‘the club’ wanted removing fro the article. Infamously, and to my recollection, the line “please take out” made it to print! (Or maybe it was leaked - I can’t remember 100%).

Made it to print if I recall. 

This model will kill the LT. No way the ads will stay with even lower viewing due to the paywall. Mind you they've been useless ever since Venkys rocked up. It's no big loss based on the last fe years. 

[Rogerb]

Nonsensical time to be doing this with most of the country sat at home with reduced income and counting every penny

[Mattyblue]

You can only imagine that advertising revenues have collapsed (along with sales of the hard copy paper) so they are desperate for income.

The pandemic could spell the end of a lot of standalone local papers , so to survive you may see full editorial mergers across the industry, so using here as an example, the LT with the Bolton News (it is halfway there already) or they fold completely.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Mattyblue

[K-Hod]

7 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

You can only imagine that advertising revenues have collapsed (along with sales of the hard copy paper) so they are desperate for income.

The pandemic could spell the end of a lot of standalone local papers , so to survive you may see full editorial mergers across the industry, so using here as an example, the LT with the Bolton News (it is halfway there already) or they fold completely.

Aye, the Accy Observer has merged with loads and is now Lancs Live.

It’s very poor and doesn’t even have the weekly ‘before the bench’ feature. A particular highlight.

[DeeCee]

Only time I read the LET is on my twice yearly visits  oop North when I'm waiting for my kebab in the Caspian in Ossy, can't say I'll miss it ?

[Tom]

The content shared on Facebook and the like is awful, take a Facebook post / lad bible list, put into an ‘article’ then share saying ‘this is class’ and repeat

Never been a fan of their reporting on inquests either even when explicitly asked not to by families but that’s probably something most local rags do 

[Leonard Venkhater]

On 12/04/2020 at 10:20, Stuart said:

During the height of the anti-Venkys feeling and ‘us and them’ beteeen fans and club (around the time of Kean/Shebby/Aggers/Shelvey) it was widely believed that the LT sent in its stories to ‘the club’ for... let’s say.. comment (rather than approval).

In one article the editor, seemingly, hadn’t spotted that ‘someone’ had scribed “please take out” - presumably next to a line that ‘the club’ wanted removing fro the article. Infamously, and to my recollection, the line “please take out” made it to print! (Or maybe it was leaked - I can’t remember 100%).

Hence, "Venkygraph" lol

[JacknOry]

On 12/04/2020 at 15:50, K-Hod said:

All the people that comment on every article like ‘Jack The Lad From Wrexham’ will be fuming....

£5 a month? In a bit, LT!

Anything that means that Claret loser now has to pay to stalk every Rovers article is a good move.

[cesus]

As others have said, well researched news content is chargeable these days and seen as a move from old school newspapers. The LT gain content from literally scouring Twitter and Facebook all day, then asking the picture owner (usually Lancs Police / Fire and Rescue) to use their picture. If all else fails, a good old google earth image will suffice! I do actually find Rich Sharpe's content pretty decent, certainly not £5 a month's worth though.

[dave birch]

Up to today, I've been able access the LT website (for what it's worth). Maybe it's geo cached or whatever it's called

[perthblue02]

On 12/04/2020 at 17:20, Stuart said:

During the height of the anti-Venkys feeling and ‘us and them’ beteeen fans and club (around the time of Kean/Shebby/Aggers/Shelvey) it was widely believed that the LT sent in its stories to ‘the club’ for... let’s say.. comment (rather than approval).

In one article the editor, seemingly, hadn’t spotted that ‘someone’ had scribed “please take out” - presumably next to a line that ‘the club’ wanted removing fro the article. Infamously, and to my recollection, the line “please take out” made it to print! (Or maybe it was leaked - I can’t remember 100%).

It was in one of the first articles about  Paul Senior . Wonder what he's up to these days, covid-19 healing crystals my best guess .

Edited April 17, 2020 by perthblue02

[K-Hod]

I saw in the comments a recommendation to get around it, it’s not that difficult if you a thirsty for poorly written and copied and pasted Twitter posts!