On Sunday 12 May, The Times of Malta ran a piece entitled “To pay or not to pay... a question of quality”, in which Allied Group managing director Adrian Hillman tried to explain why its loyal online readers, about whom it obviously couldn’t care less, should start paying around €150 a year to read its online paper. Now what really surprised me about this piece was the number of comments it attracted: one! Are The Times trying to tell us that only one person out of their entire online readership was interested enough to make a comment? We all know that is not the case and that they were, in fact, swamped with comments – all of a negative nature – and a decision was taken not to publish them as it would show the true feelings of the readership. I know that I myself sent several comments, none of which were published.

Before this decision was taken, The Times had the largest readership in Malta but I would suggest that this readership will now drop as people shun this paper for others that are not so greedy. I use the word “greedy” because, let’s face it, that is the only real reason for this decision. The online version of The Times more than pays for itself through advertising revenue yet, not happy with that, it now wants to sting its readers for more. And surely, the companies who advertise in The Times online must be asking themselves if it is still worth doing so, given the fact that the readership and therefore their audience will drop. At the very least, I think they will be asking for a cut in their advertising rates.

In the end I see this decision as something which can only damage The Times long term and, let’s face it, anyone who knows a bit about computing will be able to work around this anyway. So, all in all, it’s a bad move by The Times.

James A. Tyrrell

LARNE

NORTHERN IRELAND