The Australian digital subscription service to launch this Monday October 24 with free trial offer
The chief executive officer of The Australian and News Digital Media, Richard Freudenstein, today announced that The Australian will launch its digital subscription service on Monday October 24 with a three month free trial offer for all readers.
On the same day The Australian will launch a redesigned website and a new ‘m-site’, a site specifically designed for mobile phones. The Australian will use a ‘freemium’ subscription model, offering a mix of free and subscription-only content across its digital properties.
Once the three month free trial period ends on December 15, readers will be able to choose from four simple subscription packages, covering print and digital –
‘The Australian Digital Pass’ which gives access to The Australian’s entire website, iPad and Android apps, and m-site will cost just $2.95 per week.
‘The Australian Digital Pass’ plus a six day print subscription will cost just $7.95 a week.
‘The Australian Digital Pass’ plus The Weekend Australian print edition will cost just $4.50 a week.
‘The Australian Digital Pass’ plus The Weekend Australian print edition plus any single weekday print edition will cost just $5.20 a week.
Holders of ‘The Australian Digital Pass’ will have a single login which will work online, on tablet and on mobile.*
‘The Australian Digital Pass’ will run for four week periods, automatically renewing each time it expires.
Existing six day a week print subscribers will receive a complimentary digital subscription.
Since Rupert Murdoch announced News Corporation’s intentions to launch digital subscriptions in 2009, at least 70 newspapers around the world have begun charging for online journalism.
News Corporation publications The Wall Street Journal and The Times and The Sunday Times of London have highly successful digital subscription packages, with The Times and The Sunday Times now growing overall print and digital circulation.
The New York Times introduced digital subscriptions earlier this year and now has over 1.1 million digital subscribers.
*Tablet owners will still be able to subscribe to the iPad and Android applications of The Australian through the respective app stores, although such subscriptions will not give access to subscriber-only content on the website and m-site.
2 Comments
This is not for the paper as such. I have been trying to log into the new digital trial to no avail.
Like Maria, I have tried to register, but the response was that, despite correctly entering my ID and Surname, I “did not qualify”