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Date Published: 27/03/2020

The Murcia Today weekly bulletin changes to a paid format

This weekend the first paid weekly bulletin will be sent only to subscribers

Last week the Coronacrisis forced us to make the difficult decision of asking readers if they were willing to pay for the weekly bulletin which we have published free of charge for the last 11 years.

The response was yes, sufficient readers valued the weekly news round-up to consider it worthy of a 2 euros a month payment, so this week the first of the paid bulletins will be sent only to those who have subscribed.

It's humbling that readers are happy to support the work we do creating text in English and we're deeply grateful to all of those who have ensured that this product can continue through their decision to subscribe to the bulletin, although only a relatively small number of the many thousands who have read the bulletin free all these years have paid which is a little disappointing.

So they will no longer receive the weekly round-up, although the webpage will remain free of charge.

If you enjoy the weekly news round-up and value the service given by Murcia Today, then why not subscribe and continue to receive it yourself.

The service is priced at €24.95 inclusive per annum as a special offer for existing free subscribers, who will receive 48 News Bulletins and a shortened Whats On bulletin combination (once the lockdown is over and events have resumed).

So that’s just over 2 euros a month, a couple of cups of coffee in a normal Murcian bar per month or one cup if you happen to frequent the best golf resorts of the region!

Special Offer to existing free bulletin subscribers 50% off.

48 weekly bulletins €24.95

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TODAY
CLICK THE LINK BELOW
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=NXJLY2WLAGMXG

Why has the decision been taken to change to a paid model?

The lockdown here in Spain has been extended until 12th April and as of today, Friday 27th March, Spain has over 64,000 cases of Covid-19 and nearly 5,000 dead.

During this time many businesses are being forced to close down, the knock-on effects of which will bring widespread economic uncertainty, an inevitable recession and stark, unpleasant decisions about staffing which many businesses will be forced to face, including our own.

At the end of February the number of people registered as being out of work in Spain was just under 3.25 million, but analysis of the data available suggest that the figure will rise by millions when the March figures are published.

It is the stated aim of the national government to “minimize the destruction of employment”, but trades unions estimate that around a million people have officially been made redundant during March. On top of this, at least another million – possibly a lot more – are subject to “ERTE” temporary employment regulation schemes which have been filed by their employers in the last two weeks, meaning that the March total is expected to top 5 million for the first time since late in 2015.

This will inevitably hit businesses in this region, and here in Murcia an estimated quarter of the workforce has been made redundant in the last week, the result of which is that we have lost our capacity to finance the production of text in English by selling advertising.

We have taken drastic measures to cut every conceivable cost, find any stream of revenue available and analyse the options to continue delivering news and information in ENGLISH to our readers, as we have done for the last 11 years.

We understand fully that our readers may not have considered how much it costs to publish Murcia Today and deliver this product for FREE, but it’s expensive; every word on the site is written by a bi-lingual person being paid a salary to do so, as all of our information is taken from Spanish speaking councils, governments and the many, many sources we use to compile it, none of whom publish their information in English.

We also have a relentless and costly programming battle against hackers who are so determined to get into the site, and adding in maintenance, security, hosting and multiple other costs, it’s always a fine balancing act maintaining viability, even when it’s a “normal “ week.

In the last 12 months over 2,500,000 absolutely unique readers read the 55,000 unique articles published on our site. If we could get every one of the people who have used our services for FREE in the last 12 months to pay just 10 cents, then we wouldn´t be facing a difficult decision. But we can´t.

So, to get to the point, we have had to make changes.

We will maintain the webpage Murcia Today (www.murciatoday.com) for FREE as far as revenue permits and once the lockdown is over will continue seeking businesses and advertisers to cover the costs of operation, although we are under no illusions that this will be extremely challenging as so many businesses will also be facing financial difficulties after a month with no income and the world in turmoil.

We understand that for non-Spanish speakers the information we provide is an important bridge and the fact that so many people use the site reflects the need for what we do, but the volume of material we can produce now depends on our ability to find revenue.

Looking at the ways in which we could cut costs but continue to maintain the Murcia Today site FREE, it became apparent that the FREE Weekly Bulletin and News Flash service could be TERMINATED, saving a lot of costs and time.

However, if only a small number of those receiving the Weekly Bulletin which we’ve delivered free for 11 years were willing to support a paid subscription model, then this would secure the product and maintain sufficient resource to deliver a similar quantity and quality of material.

And this week sufficient numbers of readers have responded to enable us to convert to the paid subscription format.

Of course, it would have been better had a larger number of those who have enjoyed the service for free for so many years decided to support it, but the numbers we have now make it viable to produce the bulletin in a paid only format and only send it to those who pay for it; it's an invaluable lifeline and Murcia Today will be able to continue as a result, although of course, some of the content will have to be cut unless further support is forthcoming and the resource redirected into delivering the bulletin service for paid subscribers.

The bulletin will be priced at € 24.95 inclusive per annum as a special offer for existing free subscribers to receive 48 news bulletins and a shortened Whats On bulletin combination.