Posted on 01/07/2005 12:22:35 PM PST by Born Conservative
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times Co. is considering subscription fees to the online version of its flagship newspaper, which now is available for free, but it has no immediate plans to do so, the company said on Friday.
One of the paper's biggest rivals, Dow Jones & Co. Inc.'s Wall Street Journal, charges for its online edition. A New York Times spokeswoman said the company is reviewing whether it should make any business changes to the online version but that no shifts were imminent.
"We are reviewing the site to see whether or not there would be any areas where we should change the business model," said the spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, adding: "This is not new. We've been discussing this for some time."
According to the upcoming issue of BusinessWeek magazine, whose cover story focuses on The New York Times Co., an internal debate has been raging at the newspaper over whether its online edition, which had about 18.5 million unique monthly visitors as of November, should adopt a subscription fee.
N.Y. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was quoted in the article as saying: "It gets to the issue of how comfortable are we training a generation of readers to get quality information for free. That is troubling."
The online edition of the newspaper is available for free to registered users, although some content, such as archived articles, are available only if readers pay a fee.
Paid Web sites can help publishers draw new circulation revenue, but free online editions can be attractive to advertisers because they attract many more readers.
Newspaper industry consultant John Morton, who heads Morton Research Inc., said he thinks many newspapers want to wean readers off free online content and transform their Web sites into paid-only publications.
Free editions of newspapers on the Web are "quickly falling out of favor," he said. "I think you will see newspapers selling electronic subscriptions or print subscriptions, or a combination of both, which is what the Wall Street Journal does, and has been very successful at."
The Journal had about 701,000 paid subscribers for its Web edition as of the third quarter. Online Journal subscribers pay $79 a year, or $39 if they also subscribe to the print version.
Mathis said that when the online version of the New York Times was first launched in the mid-1990s, it experimented with charging readers outside the United States a subscription fee. She said that plan was dropped in 1998 in favor of a free site for all registered users.
NYT ping.
Who would pay to read The New York Times?
They'd have to pay me.
People used to pay for "Pet Rocks" so I guess they may as well try to see if people will pay for "Loose Marbles".
If it ain't free liberals won't bite. They get all their liberal bile from about 500 different sources(ie MSM) for free. Why would they pay for it? NYT is trying to pad their waining subscription revenue. They would have better luck selling lemonade out on 5th Ave.
Big difference. There are actually people that will pay to read WSJ.
Not me. Whenever I click onto a link and it says register or pay...I say: No way!
> Who would pay to read The New York Times?
The current print subscribers, for one.
Note that the LA Times recently dropped their national
print edition.
I suspect the NYT is about to pull the plug on some
remote mkts, but wants to keep the money from those
readers, ergo, subscription web edition.
The NYT is about to discover just how valued they aren't.
Why pay money when you can still get lied and spun to
for free via network TV "news".
Why would anyone pay for birdcage liner?
The National Post started doing this last year but you can only read it if you're connected. If they made a downloadable version I would have considered it.
"They'd have to pay me."
Heheheh! Me too.
Oh good! The blogs will still be free as the Gray Lady goes the way of the dinosaur.
That's pretty bizarre as well.
They may espouse a different ideology than the Times, but that doesn't make 'em any more "unbiased" or "objective".
In fact, I've become quite disgusted with the disingenous bilge that passes for an "informed opinion" on the WSJ's editorial pages.
I know what you mean. They are pretty anti when it comes to pork barrel rapid transit systems.
At least at WSJ the editorials are reserved for the editorial page. Also, the WSJ has at least one token liberal (Al Hunt) to offer some variety of viewpoints on the editorial page.
Cordially,
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