THE TIMES has lost nearly 90% of its online traffic following the decision to up a paywall.

In the space of just three weeks, the Times has seen its online traffic plummet as readers shy away from the demand to register and pay for content.

Unregistered visitors to the site are automatically directed to the Times membership page – which kindly offers an online video tour of both the Times and Sunday Times websites.

Here, between snippets of rousing guitar music and webpage montages, happy-looking journalists scramble over each other to explain why reading news online is much better than reading it from newspapers. And it’s not just journalists; even some politicians turn up to give their tuppence, which is lucky for people who want to see more of that kind of thing.

The argument seems to stand strong at first. The mix of music, smiling people, commanding voices, politics, touches of newspaper history, and (sort of) passable graphics all strive to come together to say: This is it, welcome to the future!

But then the video ends… and reader’s enthusiasm begins to sag slightly.

This is right about the same time as they realise that at no point during the exhilarating guitar solos or energetic testimonies from columnists or inspired talk about the future of the world… was there any mention about why you ought pay for it.

Nice try, though.