The Death of the Times Crossword Club

148 comments on “The Death of the Times Crossword Club”

1. To clarify the position for anyone who doesn’t have a current subscription, after July 1st renewing a subscription to the Club will entail a subscription to “either The Times or The Sunday Times” (although I’m not seeing an option to subscribe to the ST only on the site). Existing club subscriptions are unaffected until expiry and the pill is sweetened with the return of complimentary access to the paper for the duration of existing club subscriptions.

   Looks like in future the £2/week web pack will be the cheapest option.

   While I’m unconvinced by the logic of “This change is part of an ongoing initiative to continually improve our products by grouping them together” it is at least nice to have some clarity on where we stand. Also good to see that the web pack is now a rolling monthly subscription – moving in the right direction there, though still some way from the ‘pick and mix’ options I would like to see. Some other package prices appear to have been reduced by half, too.

   Personally I don’t have to make a decision for nearly a year so I’m not sure what I’ll do, but it looks like we’ll be losing some regulars.

   On the plus side, I get the impression they are listening, and I’m sure there will be further ‘adjustments’ to the policy in future, so let’s make sure we continue to make our voices heard. I don’t think this spells the end of this blog, Dave, though it might have to evolve into a hotbed of radical crosswordy activism!

   1. I very much hope you’re right about the future of the blog, sotira, but when I asked the question of the other bloggers last month, I had responses back from all but one of them. Of the 14 current contributors, 10 implied they would not continue, accounting for over 400 blogs a year (about 85%), so I’m not sure I share your optimism.
      1. I take the point entirely. Many of our stalwart bloggers are overseas and thus among those most likely to give up on The Times under the new regime. That is indeed a worry.

         But let’s keep agitating for something better. I note the new ‘Find a package that’s right for you’ thing on the Times site is utterly pointless – even if you only select ‘Puzzles’ as your preference you get told that the web pack is ‘just what you need’ (“No, what I need is the crossword club”!). I’m going to keep banging on about the need for a personally tailored, ‘customer driven product delivery system’ (might as well use the language they understand) and try to think of ways to get message across.

         To the barricades….!

2. I’m a Times subscriber anyway, and was quite pleased when my Crossword Club fee was waived this year. I queried in February when my CC membership failed to renew, and was granted the exception because of upcoming uncertainties about the Club. I can quite understand why current members would not want to pay the minimum £4 a week digital sub.
   I was genuinely distraught when I was temporarily locked out of TfTT a few weeks ago, and would regard the loss of the Blog as a great sadness. No doubt some would tell me to “get a life”, but we all have thing that we treasure which seem trivial to others.
   1. Perhaps you should consider joining the blogging team, z8b8d8k. We are clearly going to need to recruit a lot of new contributors if the site is to continue.
      1. Happy to do so – I think I offered last time there was a vacancy. I might only be writing for myself, though, it seems!
3. Assuming my e-mail from The Powers That Be is correct, I have plenty of time to reflect on my decision, as it claims my membership won’t expire till June 30th, 2014. However, like a lot of others, I fail to see why they are insisting on doing it this way. If I currently pay x for a product, then why should the supplier think I’ll be delighted to pay 4x for the same product, plus some other products I don’t want?

   Presumably they’ve done the sums and believe ditching the Crossword-only membership will gain more revenue from those who upgrade to a full subscription than it will lose from those who don’t migrate (even if the actual number of satisfied customers falls). Still, I live in hope that they may relent if enough people take to the barricades as per comments above…

4. Well I’m around for the foreseeable duration of this blog and am not sure whether I have been counted in or out so far.

   I’m glad to know that others are on board and I believe one or two who were anti the new arrangements have managed to renew their Club sub within the past few weeks so there should be a while before they are forced into making a decision.

   Z8, it’s £2 a week for the web pack which includes everything “Club only” members need to continue enjoying the delights on offer.

   Edited at 2013-06-07 02:11 pm (UTC)

   1. I had indeed counted you in, Jack, and I applaud you for it, but you were the only one of the Daily puzzle bloggers who responded that way. I agree that £2 a week doesn’t sound much, but it’s still four times what I currently pay, and I object as much on principle as anything else to being forced to buy something that I just don’t want.
   2. It’s £2 a week for the first 3 months, then £4.
      1. Not so. The Web Pack is all you need and that’s £2 on- going. It’s the Digital Pack that increases to £4 after the first 3 months.

         You can scroll down this page to see the three options:
         http://store.thetimes.co.uk/

5. They tell me that I will be a member until 31 Dec, and not after.

   So will it be, for I have no interest in the newspaper. I think they see ditching us as “streamlining,” Tim, and therefore, somehow desirable. I think it is fair to say that News International has not been renowned for its decisionmaking, lately. How low The Times has fallen, from the august heights it occupied when I first subscribed to it, in the mid 1960s..

   Whether that means an end to my blogging, I don’t yet know.. I’ll worry about that nearer the time. A lot can happen in six months

6. I too will not continue after my subscription expires. I don’t want an online newspaper, I just want a crossword! Murdoch is the loser!
7. I guess they are assuming that they only need 25% of people to switch to the subscription to break even, and by giving a free subscription until renewal time, many people will just carry on and pay the extra.

   It would be interesting to know how many (of a larger sample than just the bloggers) are willing to pay the extra. The only argument which is likely to carry any weight is a financial one.

   1. It may be worth mentioning, that jackkt was in fact the only blogger who responded by saying that he would be prepared to pay the extra. Of the other two bloggers who said they’d continue, one said they didn’t subscribe at all but bought the paper copy so would be unaffected, and the other said that their partner was already a full subscriber and that they would share.
      1. Just for the record, I am not affected by the latest changes as I already took the decision last July (?) to subscribe to the Web Pack (@ £2 per week) when I was suddenly deprived of my complimentary access to the newspaper which came with membership of the Club, and realised how much I missed it as a resource. I particularly like the arts reviews, many of the columnists, the current affairs coverage and I am hooked on Killer Sudoku.

         I sympathise with many of the views expressed but I also think Don Manley makes some valid points (below).

         As for this blog, if we really are under threat for lack of volunteer bloggers then I think we should concentrate on manning the pumps for the five puzzles Monday – Friday and fill in the other days as and when resources permit. Valuable as the weekend blogs undoubtedly are, they elicit very little response from other posters so there is some slack that might be lost before we even start to consider abandoning the whole TftT project.

         Edited at 2013-06-07 03:31 pm (UTC)

8. It appears I also have a year to decide, however I suspect at the end of that I’ll switch back to the New York Times (assuming they still offer the crossword-only subscription, which is currently $40 US per year).

   1. Yes, they do. And I’m very confident that at some point The Times will do the same – they’ll get the point eventually. The electronic world is now the dog, not the tail.
9. As a setter, I have some sympathy for you lot, but soem sympathy too for The Times. It clearly wasn’t worth their while to continue operating a crosswords-only subscription. Hang it — the paper loses money anyway ( and let’s not get into an irrelevant Murdoch/NewsCorp discussion here!).

   In the new regime you will be worse off, I agree, but still much better off than when it was paper-only. I also think it’s a bit rich when the electronic tail seems to threaten to wag the paper dog, and I hope the blog will continue. Apart from the irritating stuff like ‘I would have taken five seconds less if I hadn’t blown my nose’ (i.e.the absolute and silly obsession with time taken) this is generally a good blog (even when grumpy Jimbo doesn’t like me 100%!). I say to you lot overseas (and here)cough up and get over it. Don Manley

   1. Sorry, Don, I disagree, but it’s interesting to hear from a setter’s viewpoint. I don’t see why it isn’t worth their while to continue a crossword-only subscription. The software is all in place, so it’s costing them nothing to continue to offer the existing package. I certainly can’t see anything like 1 in 4 of the existing subscribers paying the full amount. Hell, only 1 in 13 of the bloggers are prepared to stump up the extra, and these are people who take their crosswords very seriously! Surely the vast majority of members are going to be less bothered about losing their crosswords rather than more so.
      I will be getting the entire online paper free for the next three months, but I don’t suppose I’ll look at it once in that time. So if I’m not going to use it when it’s free, why should I be expected to pay for it?

      Edited at 2013-06-07 03:11 pm (UTC)

      1. Just because the “software is all in place” doesn’t mean there’s no cost to providing it. Support & server costs will not be insignificant. Add the cost of losing subscribers who would have bought the paper just for the crossword, and £25 seems cheap to me.
         1. Actually, support & server costs would be insignificant, as the support staff and server space are all in place for the main website, so they’d need nothing new to cater for the Crossword Club. As for the cost of losing subscribers – I would have thought the cost of losing Crossword Club subscribers altogether would vastly outweigh this anyway. Yes, maybe £25 does seem cheap, but that does not justify a 400% increase.
            1. Do you work in IT? Sorry if that sounds a little combative, it’s honestly not meant to be. I do, but have nothing to do with finance (I’m a Unix programmer/admin), but I reckon that there _are_ significant costs to providing something which is significantly different to the rest of the content. Do you know how much support the software requires, how many people email the site because of problems with their browser, internet connection, ability to read, etc. I don’t, but I suspect that Newscorp (and I’m no fan, believe me!) do, and realise that it’s a loss to them, and not even a loss-leader, as plenty of people like me will never consider buying the paper for it’s own sake.

               I wonder how many subscribers at £25/year there were – 10000 would seem a lot to me, but that would raise a paltry quarter of a million. That won’t pay for much in the way of support staff, (who transcribes the clues onto the site?) etc.

               I am really sad about this, but Newscorp has a duty to its shareholders, not to me.

               Graham

               1. Yes I do work in IT, and you seem to be completely missing the point. Very few, if any, of the costs you’re talking about are going to change under the new regime. They’re not doing away with the crossword! The puzzles will still need to be entered, the website will still exist and still require support and server space. The only bit that’s going is the separate login page for the Crossword Club. Are you seriously trying to tell me that that one page generates a significant cost when compared to the rest of the Times website? That’s the point I was trying to make.
                  1. My point is that whilst the cost may not have changed, how do you know that those were covered by the membership costs in the past?
                     And yes, I suspect that that page, being completely different from the rest of the content, does incur significant costs. Every time they upgrade the servers, etc, they must UAT the paper, and separately the crossword club. Every call generated by a user failing to log in is a cost … you get the idea. I agree those costs probably haven’t changed. My suggestion is that in the past, they weren’t even nearly covered by the £25 annual subscription. £100 seems reasonable to me.
                     Graham
   2. You seem at least as grumpy as Jimbo, Don, if not more so!

      I admire your ability to work out that The Times makes a loss. I spent weeks analysing and dissecting the various balance sheets of News International Corp., (there were over 100) in a job I once had, and I was not able to make any such definitive statement. Still, even if it does, when has it not? It has never been a cash cow exactly. what kept it at the forefront of things was its status, and the prestige that attached to being connected with it, and that it has mostly lost

   3. A fair point. I can understand that a 300% price increase is a bit galling, but £100 still seems a reasonable price to me. Presumably in the old days before the crossword club contributors here used to buy the paper, and as Don says it’s still a lot cheaper than that.
      I have had a full subscription to the paper for ages, but only because I want the crossword, and I generally solve on the train. Until this year I was paying for the crossword club on top, to have the option of solving online when I felt like it and access to the club monthly.
      In any event, for my own selfish purposes I hope everybody pays up and the blog continues. I’d offer my services but it would be impossible for me to be a reliable weekday blogger.
      1. Except that it’s £204 a year or around 700% more, which is quite significant. I suspect that you earn more than most of the other contributors here, which is fine, but don’t expect others to share your perspective.
         1. Is it? My understanding (from other contributors) was that it was £100. £204 is quite different, obviously.
            If you buy the paper every day, it’s £1. This is what I used to do. Perhaps buying a newspaper every day makes me an overprivileged plutocrat. Now, where’s my cigar…
            1. Bourgeois scum! You’ll be the first …
               £1 a day isn’t much, until you add it up – £5/week (ignoring saturdays, obviously) approx £20/month -> approx £250/year. I happen to be reasonably well off, and will probably be second against the wall come the revolution, but for some people, £250/year is quite a luxury. I suspect a lot of people will think “Hmmm I could have a cheap holiday in Ibiza for that” (well not crossword clubbers, obviously, we’re above that), and it becomes a difficult choice. I don’t yet know what I’ll do yet – either choice is hard as I so enjoy the crossword.

               Graham

               1. I take your point, but it’s not £250, it’s £100, and you get Sarurday and Sunday for that. This seems quite reasonable to me, even if the hike is quite galling.
                  The main reason I subscribe to the paper is that I am not in a position to solve online most of the time. I hadn’t appreciated until now quite how exclusive daily newspaper consumption was.
                  1. Can you show me where it’s £100 – I saw an introductory offer which lasted for 3 months only? At £100, it’s an easy decision, and seems fairly reasonable. As I’ve said, £25 was too cheap.

                     I’d be interested to know how many people do buy a “quality” paper every day – I sense some sarcasm in your “exclusive” comment, but I do suspect that for most people £250 a year (not including weekends) is a lot to spend on a newspaper.

                     Of course, I could be wrong.

                     1. I’m just going by other comments here: the “web pack” (I think) is £2 a week. Jackkt is already a subscriber on this deal.
                        I’ve no idea how many people buy a quality newspaper every day: no doubt I’m behind the times (ha ha). However many it is, it’s not enough for newspapers to make any money. Offering their wares online for free is not going to solve this problem.
                        I can understand the resentment people feel at such a sudden hike in the price, but from a business point of view I can quite understand the move. Offering the crossword club for £25 has always struck me as a very odd pricing strategy, and one they can’t really afford.
               2. How times have changed, not sure how cheap Ibiza is these days. £250 will just about get you a ticket to Ushaia and a few grey goose vodkas in this day and age!
   4. cough up and get over it! Rather patronising.
      I live in Ireland and used to buy just the Saturday Times, which had enough interesting supplements to keep me busy for days. Then we could no longer get the full version here, so it wasn’t worth buying. I feel the same now; it’s certainly not worth paying 4 times as much.
   5. Don,

      It’s called “Times for the Times”. That’s the point. Ask Peter B. why he set it up this way if it annoys you.

      One long nose-blow during the Championships could cost one £1000 after all.

      Alec

      PS: Would have posted quicker if I didn’t have to scratch my arse a few times.

      Edited at 2013-06-09 08:20 am (UTC)

   6. Don, I do wholeheartedly agreed with you. To have access to the Times crossword is part of taking the Times newspaper – if it costs £4 a week to do that , then be thankful – it is a lot cheaper than it costs to buy the newspaper. To the bloggers – keep on doing the blog – it gives pleasure to thousands – you should be proud that you can solve the crossword so easily – in the great scheme of things, is £4 a week ruinous for so much pleasure?? Tony Wall
      1. It’s actually £1.96 per week, not £4. Details further down thread.
10. One thing that I cannot understand is why The Guardian, The Independent and The FT are able to offer their crossword puzzles free of charge, The Times cannot. Times must have some pretty awful financial managers.

    Sorry, Mr Murdoch, Uncle Yap, FCA is happily retired and can only consider a position iff the Times crossword puzzles are made available, free of charge 🙂

    p/s Like others, I will be blogging TFTT until June 2014.

    1. The Independent may offer its puzzles free of charge but its service doesn;t come close to that provided by The Times, where of course one gets more than just the ability to solve the daily puzzle.

       And the cash-strapped Indy now doesn’t even publish in Ireland. Perhaps if it had charged for its puzzles …

       And antyway, why should we expect to get the crossword part of the paper free if the rest isn’t ?!!

    2. I understand the financial gain.
       I buy the paper monday to friday
       I do the crossword and throw away the rest of the paper.
       I hope somebody can tell me a cheaper way
11. I haven’t made my mind up yet (I haven’t got the email either, to be fair). I live in California (although I’m from UK) so my desire to read the regular news in the Times is limited (and pretty much satisfied by having a subscription to the Economist).
12. Looks like I might be doing The Guardian puzzle in the new year- which is a great shame, as I much prefer the style of The Times.
13. I always thought that £25/year was cheap.
    OTOH, £200 is probably too much for me.
    I’m not interested in the paper, so it’d just be for the crossword.
    What do other people think?

    1. Far too much to pay just to do the crosswords. will be off to pastures new on 1st October. bobanann
14. I’d pay £2 == £104/year, but £200+ is just too much . It’s only £2/week for 3 months, unless I’m missing something, anyone?
    1. It depends which pack you buy. The cheapest is the Web Pack @ £2 per week on-going. The Digital pack is £2 for 3 months then £4 per week. To continue enjoying the Crossword Club as now the Web Pack is sufficient
       1. Not sure if it appears lower down the thread, but there’s a different pricing model for UK residents and non-UK residents. Anyone outside UK must pay minimum £4/week, the £2/week option isn’t available.

          Rob, in Australia.
          (Used to be a crossword club member, but let it lapse. Nowadays I do the puzzle 4 weeks later in The Australian.)

          1. I have queried this in the Club forum today and received this response from the Times. It seems you are wrong about this:

             In response to the question above, we can confirm that the Web Pack is available worldwide at £2/week. Some of the other subscription packs are not available abroad but the Web Pack is not one of them.

15. Not wishing to appear dim. My subscription is due for renewal on the 29th June. Does this mean my subscription will be renewed for another year for £24.99? Seems odd.
    1. As I understand it, Anonymous, your subscription will indeed be renewed for another year at the old rate.

       Unfortunately mine expires on 1 July, so I’ll be one of the first to leave. Reluctantly I’ll be switching to the Grauniad and/or Indie puzzle (though fortunately that will give me Pasquale and Quixote for free, Don :-).

       1. Thank you for the reply. I am sorry that your subscription is past the cut off point. I really hope the thread continues. It is such an useful resource for amateur solvers like me.
16. My first reaction to the news was to click on the e-mail address supplied for comments and send a rather angry message to customer service pointing out their folly. I am one of the overseas subscribers who has no interest in the newspaper (it’s all I can do to read my German ones and cast an occasional glance at my twenty free articles per month in the NY Times), and when access to the newspaper was free to overseas crossword club subscribers I almost never actually used it.

    I wouldn’t mind paying more for the crossword club (the price hasn’t changed for ages), but 300% more is ridiculous. What particularly bothers me about this blackmail is that the social context of the crossword club is being destroyed — what fun is it to clock my solving times if I will no longer have Tony’s times to dream about? Or to submit clues to the Clue Competition if there are only three other submissions?

    My subscription will expire in February (and I assume access to the Crossword Club will end then and not in June 2014). If I lived in the UK, I would probably be subscribing to the Web Pack anyway, or more, even if only for the crossword, but the way it is — the Grauniad and the Observer are not bad papers either and I might just see what their crosswords are like.
    But I will be very sorry to miss many friends here.

    Edited at 2013-06-07 11:50 pm (UTC)

17. The whole thing seems so irrational; why the hell can’t they just increase the Club fee to some reasonable level? (25 pounds a year is certainly cheap, although not as cheap as free is, as has been pointed out above.) I’m sufficiently addicted, and sufficiently funded, to pay 2L/week, although I’ll resent it; but I’m certainly going to give NI my opinion, and I hope everyone here does the same, although I’m less sanguine than Sotira about the effect.
    But I will definitely miss this site if, as Dave suggests, it has to shut down, and I will miss the bloggers in any case. Over the years I’ve become more accurate (and faster) in part thanks to TftT–not to mention that it’s enjoyable to read– and I’d hate to see it go.
    1. I’m not really sanguine about it, Kevin. I’m quite cross, to put it mildly, especially at the thought of all the genuine enthusiasts who will be lost to The Times solving community. But I still have a vestige of that youthful idealism which makes me believe that things can always change for the better. I shan’t give up in this site and will pitch in on the blogging if need be. We might have to evolve a bit, but that’s not always such a bad thing. And we may yet convince NI to change course on this. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re heading in the wrong direction, it’s just a matter of helping them see it.
18. What hasn’t been made clear is what happens to those who buy the Times/S Times already via Kindle. I am certainly not going to pay for a Kindle subscription, then another subscription for the Times online.
19. … on 30th June 2014. I will probably miss contributing to this blog as much as I miss the puzzle.

    Not impressed by Don’s comments (above). All the bloggers on this site are (have to be!) pretty dedicated folk. Ditto for the many contributors who comment regularly here. The sheer numbers who will drop out show that News Int. is making a very bad consumer decision. They already give us lousy service and can rarely get their annual subs right: now it’s a question of adding insult to injury: “… an ongoing initiative to continually improve our products by grouping them together”. Who do they think they’re kidding?

    Would have written this note quicker if I didn’t have to blow my nose. It’s hay fever season.

    Edited at 2013-06-08 06:24 am (UTC)

20. I tried to join the crossword club late last year but there was a moratorium on new members. I had an email from Peter Biddlecombe on 2/1/13 saying I was on the list and would be informed but nothing happened. Why a moratorium for all that time? We all love a corporate greed story (boo hiss) and this decision could have been in the making for some time but could it have been a genuine capacity/performance issue meaning the site usage couldn’t expand? I seem to remember some comments about problems getting onto the site. If so the decision to fold it into the mainstream newspaper offering doesn’t seem as heinous.
    Either way I sincerely hope the blog continues – it is a source of inspiration and, when the hair is about to be torn out, a source of relief to find the intelligently laid out explanation.
    A big ‘Thanks’ to all bloggers.
21. As someone who buys the paper every day (mostly for the crossword), I just want to say how much I will miss this blog if it dies. Although I rarely make a comment (most of what I would want to say is already covered by others), it is wonderful to see how difficult/easy other people find that day’s puzzle, how quickly the top solvers can complete it, comments on the quality of individual clues, and of course explanations of wordplay. I’ve been doing the puzzle for over 30 years, and the frustration of solving a clue without knowing exactly why has become a thing of the past.

    Would it be possible for the blogging team to take out one subscription between them?Surely it would only take one person to download each day’s puzzle and pass it on to the others? I for one would be happy to contribute something towards this!

    Thanks for all your insights. Justin.

22. Out of curiosity, do we have any sense of how many CC members there are, and of how many people are signed up to this and related blogs?

    I was just thinking that the cost of the puzzle isn’t Don’s servers and maintenance, it’s the puzzle itself and editing. I don’t know what a puzzle fetches, but guess £500 for a daily, and a bit more for Jumbos and specials, which comes to maybe £5,000+ a week for content, plus a bit more for editing. Maybe £300,000 a year minimum.

    Add to that the fact that we CC users probably (in NewsCorp’s view that is certainly) aren’t reading the ads, which are the real revenue stream for the paper. That suggests that The Times is probably inclined to think that the crossword would be best if it were close to self supporting.

    To continue with the numbers, if we CC members are the only group for whom the puzzle is a make or break issue, that needs 12,000 of us at £24.95 to justify. Obviously only 1,500 at £200. Hmm.

    Of course we aren’t the only ones, but I’m betting that NewsCorp doesn’t think that the crossword itself sells that many papers, and I bet they could pretty quickly convince themselves that Soduko (cheap – you can program a computer to set Sodukos) may be an adequate substitute for a large number of people who just need something mildly interactive for the tube ride or for their coffee break.

    So how about this for a suggestion: we ask The Times to put advertising on the CC page. Then we take it on ourselves once every week or two to click through on one of the ads, so that advertisers can see that they are getting some attention. We could even set up a rota, just like the blogs (blog Thursday, click through every other Tuesday). And we ask to keep the £25 price.

    Believe me, both The Times and their advertisers know exactly how much attention various ads get. Exactly.

    That’s just a rough thought (it suggests some other ideas, such as approaching advertisers to get their support – are any ad agency heads keen solvers?), and it isn’t especially well organised. This clever group can probably expand on it. But maybe thinking about The Times’ economics is a way forward.

    1. I think that getting a personalised crossword from certain setters costs about £200 so I would guess that the fee for a daily is probably half that – certainly nowhere near £500. However I would agree that the bulk of the overall cost of the puzzle is probably in the setting/editing rather than the IT back end.

       Edited at 2013-06-08 11:29 am (UTC)

       1. Point taken about fees for setting puzzles (and about gaming the ads), but let’s not get too bogged down in detail. It seems the big picture points are:

          – Newspapers are pressed for profits, and the crossword is a cost

          – CC members don’t contribute to the way that the paper thinks it makes money (selling ads / selling papers)

          – Their first try to getting the crossword to contribute a little more is to raise the subscription rate

          – Comments in the forum say pretty clearly that most CC members think the puzzle is worth about £25, and everyone who uses only the CC (ie, who doesn’t already have a full subscription or buy paper copies) thinks £200 is way too much

          – If they hold to the £200 replacement rate, they can risk 7 out of 8 of us quitting

          – If there were a large number of CC members, then the risk of all of us dropping would be costly. But if there aren’t that many CC subscribers it doesn’t matter very much to them whether we drop or not

          So, we either need to convince them that a lot of us dropping will be a cost (hard to do, I think), or we need to find a way (advertising?) to get them to believe that we contribute above and beyond the £25 subscription

          Other than advertising, what ideas can we come up with? If Peter B is monitoring this, maybe he has some advice.

          1. It really is not helpful that people keep repeating that a subscription to the Times to continue enjoying the Crossword Club costs £200. It does not. It is £2 per week or roughly £104 per year. I pay this at £8.66 per month.

             Edited at 2013-06-08 01:50 pm (UTC)

             1. You are perfectly right, Jack but getting The Times to disgorge that fee to you is quite difficult… they must share the blame for this confusion
             2. I’d have thought it was obvious that the Times/News Int DOES think the crossword is valuable to the paper. That’s why they’re integrating it into the main website (where it should always have been IMHO)
                I don;t imagine that the overheads for the puzzle are enormous, including the handful of specially commissioned “Club only” ones

                I think I’m right in saying that there are about 4000 subscribers to the Crossword Club.

                Also, echoing jackkt, is the £2 weekly fee so outrageuous? Yes it’s a big hike on the current charge, but it’s peanuts compared to the cost of buying the paper on a daily basis. And we have the advantage of all the other stuff the club provides

    2. I agree with nearly everything, except that no matter what the cost of servers (virtually nil, I suspect), and maintenance (significant, I suspect), these costs are generating next to no revenue, and as you say, are potentially pulling revenue away from the physical (or web) paper.

       Graham

23. I don’t think I’d be keen to advertise if I thought the results were being skewed by CC members clicking on my ads on a rota! But much to consider there, Paul.
24. I walked across to my local service station to buy a sandwich. I was kindly informed that I would have to by some fuel as they were improving the sandwich by combining it with diesel. I do not own a car so the fuel was of no use. I did not want to watch videos or see pictures of the latest oil exploration techniques, I did not want to discuss fuel with experts, I did not want a petrol account, I did not want emails about diesel and I did not want to share my views on unleaded with anyone. I’m going down the road to a sandwich bar. Rick Lines.
    1. My local baker said I could only have bread if I also bought lots of cake. Maybe News Int. = Marie Antoinette (even if she didn’t say it)?
       1. Your baker would probably object, though if you said “I only want the crust-end, and I’ll pay you 1/10th the price of the whole loaf”.
25. Without naming particular papers the range of fees for 15×15 is £100-£200. Jumbos pay more obviously!
26. I too was lead up the garden path under the assumption once the “temporary changes” to the website had been made I would be offered the chance to join up but I did have my suspicions at the time that that was a spindle of lies, given that it seems absurd one would have to wait to give Murdoch his money whereas anyone with the appropriate means can buy a Telegraph puzzles subscription 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

    Thoroughly disappointed. As a sixth former in full time education, I can only really afford to buy the Times as a treat on a Saturday. As soon as if I’ve cut out the crosswords, the rest of the papers goes into the bin. I’m pleased to see the old guard are as upset about this as the newer folk are. Spells bad for everyone.

27. Wouldn’t dream of paying to read Times and boost Murdoch Empire. The only consoling thought is that the Times, trying to be greedy, will actually lose money if they keep the Crossword Club on. What we need is a another crossword club.
28. I live in the States and jointly solve Sat and Sun crosswords with my UK-based friend from college days. She buys the two papers and faxes the crosswords over. We love reading your blog to find out any answers we couldnt completely parse, like last Sat’s “collaborator” – could not see how the letters ator came from the word base.

    When we saw that faxing could become expensive, and I pay for printing at the local library, we looked into an online subscription, but decided against it, based on costs.

    We are too amateurish to offer solution blogging, but would be really sad to lose this blog for all the reasons mentioned in the earlier comments. You offer a great service and an amusing community.

    Thank you and I hope we continue in some form.

    1. Greetings. Nice to hear from you. I’m sure all the regular bloggers (I’m just “on the subs’ bench”) greatly appreciate hearing positive comments like that.

       One of the reasons I find The Times new policy so puzzling is that I’m certain ‘friendly fax’ incidents (not to mention pdf screenshots) will increase dramatically under the new system. It seems like parts of the newspaper industry are determined to repeat the mistakes made by the music industry before them – pricing and packaging as though we were still in an analogue age and failing to embrace the very flexibility that the web brings, thus losing customers and creating an environment ripe for piracy. But hey-ho, whaddo I know?

    2. For the duration and for future reference, instead of hitting the ‘print’
       button go the option ‘mail pdf’…it’s the best price….free.
       1. Thank you for the suggestion – will suggest to my UK counterpart.
29. (I’ve split this in two as I’m making a couple of only vaguely related points.)

    While it’s a shame we’ll have to pay more for what we currently get, from my perspective I’m still up on the game…

    I used to get a paper not-quite-daily, tear out the crossword and pass the rest to my better half, who frankly has better things to do with her time than read The Times. One Christmas, my mother-in-law bought me a subscription to the CrosswordClub, which I’ve renewed every year since, as it’s much cheaper than buying the paper four or five times a week. So if I now have to pay roughly £2 a week, I’m still better off than I was.

    And if our preconceptions weren’t anchored at £25 per annum, how much do you think access to The Times crosswords is worth? £2 a week doesn’t seem outrageous to me – or like Don M, should I now be reaching for my top hat and cigar…?

    JEH

    1. You make a good point in your last paragraph, JEH, about preconceptions being anchored on £25 per annum and the value that might be placed on access to the Times crosswords. One point that has not been mentioned so far (I think) is that the £24.99 fee has remained unchanged for years and almost certainly should have increased long ago – I first paid it in 2006! In view of this, I’d have thought a substantial increase to £35 or even £40 would have been justifiable (the Telegraph currently charges £35.88 although this goes up to £60 or thereabouts if you pay monthly) so it’s a great shame that the Times didn’t seek to increase its revenue by this means rather than alienate its loyal customer base first by prevaricating and then eventually coming up with a total botch which they have attempted to justify using a smokescreen of meaningless business jargon.

       Edited at 2013-06-08 11:21 pm (UTC)

       1. Interesting, jackkt, to see The Telegraph’s price; I’ve never done a comparison before, given how cheap the CC was. I guess the relative (new) pricing implies that NI think The Times crosswords are three times better…

          And yes, the management smokescreen is utterly infuriating. It’s bad enough putting up with that stuff at work; I don’t need it from my crosswords too!

          JEH

          1. Another interesting point is that the Telegraph fee includes ALL their puzzles – 6 types of crossword, Codeword and Sudoku and its variants, whereas the Times Club doesn’t, one needs a newspaper sub for Sudoku, for example.

             Edited at 2013-06-09 11:01 pm (UTC)

30. (I’ve split this in two as I’m making a couple of only vaguely related points.)

    On the concept of value, I personally find this blog invaluable. I’m still pretty rubbish at The Times crossword myself, with at least a couple of clues eluding me at the end of most days. Without the recourse to this blog when I finally admit defeat, life would be a lot more frustrating.

    While it’s probably contrary to subclause 150.1.35.3(c) or whatever in the terms and conditions, I can’t imagine anyone at New International would object if we set up a “blog” account that whoever was blogging that day’s crossword could use. I’m sure we could raise contributions from the blog’s users to fund this.

    Would that work from the perspective of those who do the blogging? I appreciate doing the blog must take some real commitment, so I could imagine that only doing The Times crossword on the days you were allocated for blogging may put you off entirely.

    JEH

    1. I think someone else made a similar suggestion to this earlier in the thread. I’d be quite happy to go along with something on these lines. I’m not sure what the ethical standpoint is on this approach, but I’m not the sort of person who tends to lose sleep over that sort of thing!
    2. I have to say I’m very much against this idea. There have to be legal issues involved and in any contest of will we would be the eventual losers and may find ourselves closed down involuntarily. Best not to go there.

       I’m sure with a little extra effort and commitment this blog can survive, not that I have any say in the matter. I’m certainly willing to cover another puzzle per fortnight (i.e. one per week) if it’s needed to keep things going.

       1. I guess we’ll need a careful read of the Ts and Cs come switchover to see whether there’s any wriggle room. I suspect there won’t be much…

          Perhaps then, if we lose too many bloggers, it will be up to silent lurkers such as myself and many others who have posted here for the first time recently to pick up the slack. While my past performance suggests I’d never be able to do a whole blog, I suspect between us all we could fill in the gaps.

          JEH

31. Just catching up with all this debate…

    Just to say I’d really, really miss this site, for all the above reasons, and also because no one in my real world shares my interest (slightly obsessive, according to my OH) with the Times crossword.

    Personally, I will subscribe to the web package, but can totally understand why several wouldn’t.

    To all bloggers and contributors: a massive thank you for the hours you’ve all put in! Much appreciated by this very amateur solver!

32. For what it is worth, I have replied to the email, and said I’d be prepared to pay a bit more for the crossword, but I don’t want the newspaper.
    AJK
33. Just to add my extra 2d, having had time to reflect, I’ve reached similar conclusions to others just above. If the Club-only membership had risen by reasonable increments over its life, I think most people would have gone along with it; and by paying the £24.99 in the first place, we are all agreeing that the crossword has value, and that we don’t expect to be given it for nothing.

    I also think there is a large constituency of people who love the Times crossword but have no use for the rest of the paper, and are never going to see any value in offers which include access to it.

    I suspect the problem has arisen because a) good though it may have seemed at the time that there were no annual price rises, the jump from Crossword-only membership to the cheapest subscription under the new model is now much larger than it seems reasonable to impose in one go, and b) the rationale is being expressed in weaselly management guff which clearly puts everyone’s backs up.

34. I have rarely posted a comment but wanted to say how sad it would be for this blog to disappear. For me of one life’s daily pleasures.

    When I first heard the news about the new subs I thought we were going to be hit with a fee of £200-300, at which I would have probably thrown in the towel but £100 isn’t so bad IMHO and £25 was very cheap.

    Brett

35. I have yet to receive the e-mail about the demise of the Times Crossword Club. If it happens I suppose it’s a sign of the times (ho ho). As for me, I’ll continue subscribing after 30 September unless the subscription increases exponentially. I wait to see. I have to admit having access to and being able to print old Club Monthlies keeps this retired brain in focus.

    Happy crossword solving

36. I am not sure NI have thought this through. I buy a paper copy every day, and originally joined the Crossword Club for access when I was abroad and the paper was not readily available – now I find it convenient to print the crossword on a sheet of A4 and so use the club even when I am in the UK.I would resent having to pay for the paper and the web package.

    Regarding this blog, I have been a regular visitor for several years – once to read the initial comments to find out what’s in store, and once to enjoy the discussion.It has immensely improved my skills, and the discussion is an enjoyable daily interlude. It would be a shame indeed if the blog was discontinued. Thanks to the bloggers and participants.

    Tej Sinha

37. I have not posted in this forum before – I print the crosswords out and solve them while travelling, so I am always a few days behind everyone else. I wonder how many others, like me, are silent lurkers?

    Anyway, time for me to chime in to say how much I appreciate the work of all the bloggers – ironic isn’t it that we are in high dungeon about the price rise but none of the bloggers complains about doing the work for free.

    I feel very angry that the Times has tried to pass this off as a move to ‘continually improve our products’. If they explained they needed much more money to make the club financially viable, I’d cheerfully pay up. If they said that they need to increase the pitiful amount the setters get, I’d cheerfully pay up. Instead they insult us with corporate hogwash and for that reason alone I’m not going to pay the raised subs. I will print out back numbers and pick up the Times at airports and muddle through.

    And I will always appreciate what this blog has done for me, whether or not you can bring yourselves to stump up the extra and keep it going (I do hope so!)

    David

38. As antipodeans we have no real interest in, or need of, a British newspaper … but we very much enjoy doing the cryptic x-word, and learning from the blog (a big thank you to you all, with hope that it can continue).

    At the crossword club rate we are paying about 7p per day to access the current x-word and the considerable archive. To us this is the bargain of all times … no pun intended.

    At the advertised ‘digital pack’ full rate this same access would cost us 8 times as much.

    On the face of it this first seemed a substantial price hike, but on reflection we have concluded that 60p per day is not an unreasonable price to pay for us to continue to enjoy the pleasure/challenge of the Times crossword. As a cost indicator, this is a fraction of the price of other entertainments we also enjoy. It is also the case that we have tried other crosswords but found them to be inferior to the Times cryptic.

39. I dislike giving Rupert Murdoch even the twenty five squid so any more is out of the question. I’ll go back to photocopying the crossword out of The Australian at the local library. It’s out of synch with The Times and therefore TfTT will no longer be of much interest.
    One way of keeping this community together would be to shift the blog’s focus to a free crossword such as The Guardian.

    Terence

40. Hi.. I’ve been reading this blog about a year.

    I first started on the Times crossword in April of last year. I would buy the paper on a Saturday and try the prize puzzle. If by some miracle I did well with it I would go on to the Jumbo, with no expectation of finishing it. I found that by the end of the week the rest of the paper was going in the bin, largely, or indeed completely, unread so I joined the online club, which has worked really well. I now find that due to the invaluable contributions of the members here that I usually expect to finish both the prize puzzle, and the Jumbo, and often go on to the daily puzzles during the week.

    Like many of you, I received the email (and letter) telling me of the changes and that my renewal this June would be unchanged, and that I would have access until the next renewal in June 2014. However my subscription expired yesterday and my access died at midnight. Payment was taken at 2:30am this morning. I can now login, using a newly changed password that I know is correct, and when I do, it shows me as ‘guest’ and refuses me access to the crosswords.

    This is not an “improvement”.

    Furthermore, whether I renew next year remains to be seen. I really don’t want the paper and will resent having to pay to have it bundled in.

41. Hmmm.. magically, since my last post I now have access. Something of a fiasco though, and not the seamless unchanged experience I was promised.

    Incidentally, I meant to say a big thank you to all who post here – you have taught me a lot. May this blog long continue – there is much still to be learned!

    Cheers

42. I am just a crossword subscriber who reads your blog when I am stumped. I will be sad to see it go, as I will the crossword as I will not pay £200 p.a. for something I do not want or need, i.e. the on-line paper. I hope I can find a way of stopping them from grabbing £200 from me, I have had some big problems with WorldPay helping themselves to my money,then struggling to get repaid via the Times. All the best, geoffK007
    1. It’s not £200 for access to the Club, it’s £104. I hope you can rest assured that even given the incompetence that we’ve witnessed in the past at the Times admin you will not be charged for a subscription to the on-line newspaper that you have not applied for.
43. There seems to be quite a lot of irritation at the corporate guff in the letter from NI. I can understand this (because it’s irritating) but I wonder what people were expecting them to say?
    “As a member of the Crossword Club, you clearly love the Times crossword. In the old days you used to buy the paper for that reason alone. It has suddenly occurred to us that for years we have been charging people like you far less than we can get away with, so we’ve decided to quadruple the price”
    More honest but hardly likely!
    1. You’re quite right of course but it’s a case of adding insult to injury. They’d have done better to find a more equitable solution in the first place but I suppose the poor bloke charged with defending the indefensible had no say in the matter.
44. Dave, please stick around. I would be quite willing to help keep this blog going if an extra bench player is needed here and there. Sorry to be so late. I was away for the w/e and there was rather a lot to assimilate last night.
45. Speaking as a relatively recent TFTT blogger.. 18 months or so.. I must say I’m quite touched by all the positive things people have to say about TFTT. I do think it is probably a bit premature to assume we will go.. give it a few months for events to settle out.
    When the Crossword Club website was relaunched, we were approached with a view to being a part of the website, “official” bloggers, as it were. We decided instead to retain our independence, the right decision I am sure, but it was interesting to see that at least someone in The Times felt we had a value.
    Of course I should point out that we have kept our subscription fee of £0 unchanged for many years, so perhaps we should now consider raising it by ∞% to say, £10pa.. it should be more than enough to give all the bloggers web access! {joke}
46. I have appreciated the efforts of everyone who contributes to TftT for a number of years. It, together with his own blog, was brought to my attention by Tony Sever in the old RTC days. The blogs added much to my crossword experience after years of just pencil and paper solving. I subscribe to Times Online and have had the crossword October subscription refunded with no explanation and no reply to my email to them on the subject. How else would I have found out what is happening (or how to find the Championship entry puzzles, etc) if there were no dedicated people writing blogs? This is my daily “fix”, being retired and I would be prepared to consider paying a subscription to TftT if necessary to keep it going.
47. I received the e mail a month ago and my separate crossword club membership was refunded. Of course there is the possibility that far more people will take an interest in the crossword now that they are able to access all the puzzles.
48. I don’t think the crossword club is “dying” is it? It may cease to have a separate subscription but the content will continue, and in fact hopefully improve.

    I do sympathise with the cynicism about the reasons given for the merger though. But what corporate body was ever honest when it came to things like this?

    I must say I’m a bit disappointed by all the “I’m not giving my money to the Murdoch empire” stuff.
    Seems a bit blinkered, and perhaps rather ridiculous when by being crossword club members we’re already part of the evil one’s domain 🙂

    1. I’m afraid the Crossword Club is definitely dying. The crossword itself isn’t, but the club undoubtedly is.
49. I read this blog daily and enjoy the contributions. I have read the comments regarding the seemingly thorny issue of subs.

    Am I the only person that takes the view that most of you that are railing against the change being a bit niggardly? I cannot believe – taking the Murdoch/NI/morally superior principles to one side – that you cannot afford less than 30 pence per day to continue to use the Crossword Club service.

    To paraphrase Don Manley – Get over it and part up, IT COSTS 30p A DAY!!

50. “Club” only as in “club”. The “Crossword” bit (i.e. the important bit) is carrying on.

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