ireland.com is to charge users an annual fee of €79 to access its premium content from the beginning of next month, it announced this morning.
The charge will apply to the premium news service, comprising The Irish Times, the Breaking News service, ireland.com's searchable archive of all online newspaper articles dating back to 1996 and micro-sites including technology, sport and business.
A range of free content will still be available, including some material from The Irish Times, the Breaking News service.
There will be no charge to access micro-sites such as Property, Jobs and Motors, in addition to special feature sites focusing on major events like the World Cup and the General Election.
Subscriptions are available on an annual, monthly or weekly basis to individuals and on an annual basis to corporate clients.
Individual monthly subscriptions will be €14 and individual weekly subscriptions will be €7. Premium email subscribers are being offered a special subscription rate of €59 for an annual subscription.
The move towards subscription follows a growing trend amongst leading content-driven websites all over the world and follows the success of ireland.com's subscription email service, launched in January.
Yesterday the Financial Timesnewspaper announced a subscription service for its FT.com website. The newspaper is to charge £75 sterling a year for access to its site.
In 1994 The Irish Timesbecame the first newspaper in Ireland or the UK, and among the first 30 in the world, to go online. The site was relaunched in 1999 as ireland.com, and a range of products and services were developed to cater for Irish and international markets.
ireland.com's business model is now based on advertising, email subscriptions, content syndication and mobile services.