The New York Times, like most big city dailies, is struggling to be profitable. To help the bottom line, the newspaper says it will begin charging readers for access to its now free
online stories beginning in 2011.
In a novel approach, the Times said it would allow readers to access a limited number of stories at no charge each month. But once a reader crosses a threshold in terms of the number of pages accessed, the Web site will impose a charge. Subscribers to the print edition of the Times will continue to have free and unlimited access.
The company has studied the issue for more than a year, trying to figure out how to get more revenue from its Internet site, at a time when newspaper advertising revenue is steadily dropping. The challenge is to avoid drastically reducing Web traffic, so that the site remains influential and that its advertising sales don`t suffer.
Calling its plan a "metered model," the Times says it hopes to avoid radically changing things, but instead begin a long term process whereby the newspaper`s Internet site becomes a stronger contributor to the company`s bottom line.
So far, there are few details about specific plans. Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. told the Wall Street Journal that he doesn`t see the move as "a financial game changer." He says he`s simply positioning the Times for where he thinks the Internet is going.
Charging for online content could well be the wave of the future. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, whose properties include the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Fox News, has been talking for several months about charging for online news content on his company sites. The Journal has had an online subscription business for the last several years.
The Times didn`t say how many articles per month a reader could access at no charge, but company executives said they want to keep a healthy mix of paid views and those who access the site through search engines.
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20.01.2010
New York Times to Charge for Web Content
The New York Times, like most big city dailies, is struggling to be profitable. To help the bottom line, the newspaper says it will begin charging readers for access to its now free online stories beginning in 2011. In a novel approach, the Times said it would allow... |
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