• The Independent, Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:41 PM

Two months after Rupert Murdoch's decision to erect a subscription paywall around the Web sites of The Times and The Sunday Times, thus removing their content from search engines, the bold experiment is having a marked effect on the rest of British media. Faced with a collapse in traffic to thetimes.co.uk, some advertisers have simply abandoned the site.

Rob Lynam, head of press trading at the media agency MEC, whose clients include Lloyds Banking Group, Orange, Morrisons and Chanel, says,"If there's no traffic on there, there's no point in advertising on there." Lynam says he has been told by News International insiders that traffic to The Times site has fallen by 90% since the introduction of charges. He warns that newspaper organizations have less muscle in internet advertising campaigns than they do in print. "Online, we have far more options than just newspaper Web sites."

Read the whole story at The Independent »