NYT to charge for web site access

[dsrtao]

NYTimes.com is by far the most popular newspaper site in the country, with more than 17 million readers a month in the United States, according to Nielsen Online, and analysts say it is easily the leader in advertising revenue, as well.

...


This would not be the first time the company has attempted an online pay model. In the 1990s it charged overseas readers, and from 2005 to 2007 the newspaper’s TimesSelect service charged for access to editorials and columns. TimesSelect attracted about 210,000 subscribers who paid $49.95 a year

Would anyone like to look at those two numbers again?

17,000,000 vs 210,000

About 1.5% of the people who are willing to look at their site for free modulo advertising are willing to pay for the privilege.

Want to bet that advertising will be shown to the paying customers, too? Theaters do it.

Comments

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

I think one of the keys (and smart things) is that they are not going to charge for casual access.

That of course, hinges on how they define casual access.

Ten free hits a month? More. I do like tobe able to link to it.

I see ads in the newspapers I pay for.


I think they are doing it the right way, getting out in the public a year before they do it, taking suggestions, etc.

What gets left out in a lot of these stories is that there are a number of smaller papers that basically say, "To see our web site, you need to subscribe to the paper. If you're in our delivery area or will pay postage, you get both. Otherwise you get the web."

The Westerly Sun is an example.

Me? I would pay $1 a week for access to the Times online.

The print edition costs $2 a day up here. ;)

I would likely pay for the Boston Globe and maybe the Washington Post. That's about it. Maybe The Day of New London.

[jtdiii.livejournal.com]

I might pay if there were no ads. However I really would not be willing to pay if the online version also had ads.

[seawasp]

Not "1.5% are willing to pay"; that many are willing to pay a given amount for x time of access. Many of those hits are doubtless people directed there by a link to look at one article. I suspect if it was *trivially* easy to pay, say, ten cents for seeing one article that interested you, a lot more people would be willing to pay something.

That's why iTunes gets a good deal of my money; I don't have to spend $15 for the whole CD, I can get the one track I want for $0.99.

[metageek.livejournal.com]

Want to bet that advertising will be shown to the paying customers, too? Theaters do it.

And cable companies, and the T, and some restaurants...

GrrRRR

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I recently adblocked all of New Scientist.

Because their site limits you to three page views per day. Badly. If you open four things in tabs, all of them retroactively become "You have exceeded your limit." Killfile'd. Learn the web.

I'd hate to have to killfile the NYT, so I hope they don't entirely suck.