Times has mixed messages on website paywall

This is the same Guardian which spurns charging for online news and the same Times whose owner, News Corp, attacks Google for "taking our stories for nothing".

The Times and Sunday Times said this week that they have "achieved more than 105,000 paid-for customers" in the four months since their digital relaunch. But the picture is still confusing: 105,000 is a gross figure, which includes a mix of regular online subscribers and one-off paying readers and both web and iPad data. It is thought the net number of dedicated web subscribers might be half that figure.

Expect News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch to face questions when he unveils first-quarter results tonight.

Boaden has wise words for BBC staff

A further sign that BBC director of news Helen Boaden has her eye on the race to be the next director-general?

She has written a rousing appeal to staff in internal newspaper Ariel, urging members of the National Union of Journalists not to strike over plans to slash final-salary pension benefits.

"At a time of austerity we need to be very careful about testing the patience of the public who ultimately pay for the BBC and for our pension contributions," she writes. "We are the most trusted news broadcaster in the world not just because we care about getting it right — but because we stay in touch with our audiences. Let's not jeopardise that."

Boaden was promoted to join the BBC executive board last month.

Nick goes into TV combat

Forget the day job: BBC political editor Nick Robinson is busy preparing for combat on Have I Got News For You.

Mischievous producers have lined him up on a panel with TV comic Chris Addison, who wrote recently that Robinson's political reporting makes him throw shoes at the TV. "It's the unbearable well-this-is-what-they-say-but-we-all-know-better-don't-we-ness that has me unlacing my footwear," declared Addison. Robinson is apparently preparing to give as good as he got.

HIGNFY has also persuaded Sally Bercow, gaffe-prone wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow, to take part later this month

Telegraph makes Hay in Guardian gloom

The suggestion in last week's column that the Guardian's headline sponsorship of the Hay literary festival was about to stop has proved correct. The Daily Telegraph has nabbed the rights. There are wild rumours that it was willing to pay three times as much as the financially challenged Guardian.