So the Times and The Sunday Times are to begin charging £1 per day or £2 week for their websites. 

This is a feature that is being re-introduced to these websites. Originally disabled because they weren’t able to compete with the fee-free service provided by the BBC, the system sees re-implementation after News International owner (do I need to speak his name?? okay.. Voldemort) has put significant pressure on those in the BBC to scale back their news service.

the BBC local news is already pretty dire (in my opinion - it’s been getting steadily worse) and the overall website has undergone an insane amount of tabloidisation over the past year. so will people be fussed about paying £2 a week for The Times? at first they probably will, but when the BBC is 50% “magazine” features and 40% stories that get bumped off the page in favour of more entertainment based stories (do I really care that some maths genius is a hermit? do i give a shit about seagulls being lovesick?) people will soon start to turn towards media outlets that provide more decent quality in exchange for some cashmoneyhoes.

i still don’t understand how reducing the quality of national services is meant to be good for the public. it’s only good for the private and commercial sectors. if anyone mentions “providing a choice” i’ll kick them.