The New York Times Company announced this morning that it will be introducing a paid, metered model for NYTimes.com at the beginning of 2011.
The publisher will offer users free access to an unspecified set number of articles per month and then charge users once they exceed that number.
The New York Times says this will enable NYTimes.com to create a second revenue stream while still preserving its advertising business, for which digital now makes up about a quarter of its total advertising revenues. In addition, the company says, it will also provide the “necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web”.
Through 2010, NYT will be building a new online infrastructure designed to provide consumers with a good user experience across multiple platforms. Once the metered model is implemented, New York Times home delivery print subscribers will continue to have free access to NYTimes.com.
“Our new business model is designed to provide additional support for The New York Times’ extraordinary, professional journalism,” said Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times. “Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services.”
It remains to be seen if that will be the case.
The company said more details regarding the metered model will be available in the coming months. Check out NYT reporter Richard Pérez-Peña’s take on his employer’s plans here.
Last weekend, New York Magazine reported that the New York Times Company was close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website. They were right, and also about the fact that it would likely be a metered model like the Financial Times rather than a pay wall type offering like the Wall Street Journal (cough).
Evidently, it’s hard not to see this announcement in light of Apple’s upcoming event, where the company is set to unveil its new tablet computer and a slew of content partnerships with major publishers, likely including the New York Times.
What do you think about the NYT’s plans to start charging for access to its website articles?
Do you think they made the right decision in turning to the metered model rather than a traditional pay wall or micro-payments based approach?
Somekind of “freemium” news model. Heavy users get charged. Wonder how many articles are for free. I think I read about 10 to 20 per month.
I think the metered approach is too burdensome at both ends of the transaction.
I think easier to implement (for publisher and user) and ends up better long term if you give some articles away for free, but if user wants the rest they need to be monthly paying subscribers. Once they sign up as paying members, NYTimes gets paid until the member cancels. Per article charges seems unworkable. They should provide teasers (a few lines) for the paid articles to entice people to signup.
However, I agree with putting up a paywall around original content. Currently, you can find anything anywhere for free, but once paywalls start going up, some (not all) of important news/journalism will be behind a paywall. The “everything is free of Internet” model is finally making room for other models.
We’ll now see for the first time if there’s room for a broader move to paid content, daily news in particular. This is a highly interesting trial balloon as it’s not only the NYT that’s going to charge.
I see the NYT needing to partner with TV to make their news as valuable as websites. It seems the news is free to access anywhere, now its about finding and keeping an audience that trusts your brand. The value of news and gossip is going down quickly.
Yes, but a paywall for certain articles makes those articles invisible to search. This was not the idea behind the internet.
Newspapers need to encourage readers to pay, but not try to force them. On an open network, they’ll get round it or go elsewhere.
I pay an online newspaper subscription. Not because I really need to, but because I value the content and I think its the right thing to do.
Charging for something that used to be free never ever goes over well and very rarely works. Good luck NYT. I read online everyday, but I’m sure as hell not going to pay for it when you start charging.
If you’re going to start charging for something that used to be free you have to, have to, have to improve the service somehow. Then you can spin it that you’re paying for the *new* added service. And taking away the ads doesn’t count.
This will not work, ever. Switching is entirely too easy and as loyal as NYT readers might be, they’re not stupid.
All the while we heard rumored reports that Harper Publisher will try to sell e-books diectly to iTunes once the Apple tablet has been unveiled.. Pff, Hopefully this won’t spell a new shift to the news world.. Giving “TOLL-FEE” to every news we read.
Details: http://bit.ly/iphone-4g-apple-tablet-details
Hey, there’s still USA today
The question has to be;
‘is charging, to read more than X stories, a comprehensive and fully fledged business model to support democracy, transparency of governments, investigative journalism, etcetera?’
In the eyes of the beholder [NYT], it is justifiable. But for people who lost their jobs in this recession. Who lost their 401k’s [savings]. Who can’t get married. Who drink poisned water. Who’s governor or senator doesn’t represent their electorate not well enough. Ear marks in spending bills, debt ceilings which got raised every now and then. And on and on and on …
In the eyes of most Americans who go to work every day, pay their taxes, bring up their children, get them educated, but still face, with no other choice, an in parts criminal government, companies, and powerful individuals.
I know it is a long shot to the NYT/Journalism from here. But the ballpark is very big. And this ‘business model’ is not as good to cover this ballpark as the board of the NYTs is thinking.
Hmmm…typically I have seen this implemented on sites by using cookies to track how many articles you have been to and then once you hit your “limit” they force you to log in, etc. A simple “fix” to this is to not allow the site to set cookies at all and you are done.
The only other way would be to require everyone to log in and track it that way…but that would be problematic for people coming from a search, etc.
“Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services.”
In your dreams.
I don’t consume content based on who produces it any more. If your content is not free, I will find another source for the same content. I can guarantee it’s out there. I will also stop linking to your content, because I can’t guarantee that my readers will be able to read the content.
“award-winning digital content”
Seriously? What awards have they gotten for their digital content?
It’s only the most prestigious and well-respected news paper in the world that is read in every single country by millions of people.
Anyway, I can definitely tell you their audience is very loyal and we will pay for their award-winning digital content and services. Because, if you stopped trying to not look, you look into how many awards the NYT receives. It’ll boggle your mind. And, if you appreciated good journalism, you would understand that their digital content and services are just means their online version of the NYT paper.
And TPP, aren’t you old enough to know that anything “free” comes with a catch. Especially with something as important as your news, which requires you to make healthy, rational decisions based on what you try hard to ensure is fact.
Dont be noobs.
The New Bedford Standard Times has recently implemented the same type of system. Here is the link and if you look at the top of the page there are links explaining it.
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/
Interesting that media companies like LexisNexis, Wolters Kluwer, who have used this walled garden/freemium hybrid approach for many years have been very much trying to find an alternative as long term growth and profit outlooks are dim.
They are realizing that the walls are getting very permeable with content seekers increasingly finding the information elsewhere for lesser cost, and content providers finding better monetization options for their expertise and insights.
Perhaps their thinking is to do what the cable companies do, have subscriptions AND advertising. This works when you have an exclusive franchise for the delivery systems into the home as the cable companies do, but there is no parallel exclusivity on the Internet.
Under the theory that something is better than nothing, this will provide increased revenue for a time, but I sincerely hope they are looking at this approach as strictly transitional because the garden walls are not much more sustainable than the model they are transition from.
Haven’t they done that a few years back? I can remember when some of their Op-Ed columns (such as columns by Maureen Daud and Thomas L. Friedman) could be accessed by paying users only . “Surprisingly” it was free again after a short period of time.
News are free everywhere on the net.
My apologies, It’s Maureen Dowd and not Daud.
Yeah, it was a unmitigated disaster that they seem to have forgotten about.
Their going to loose their audience, but not if there is a rule made that all news sites should be paid. NYT had told BBC 3 – 4 months that they will be planning paid access to their online version.
I suppose this could work in the short term, if the NYT has enough heavy users that are enthusiastic about playing along. That’s a lot to ask though.
Long term, I think it’s destined to fail. Information wants to be free. It’s a very simple rule that so far has won time and time again. Only the physical limitations of delivery have allowed any exception to that rule, and we know those days are long past.
More important is the public perception of news being free. You flip on the TV, free news. Turn on your computer or cell phone, free news. Even if you’ve had a paid subscription to a newspaper, you don’t walk out to the driveway in the morning and figure up what you paid for today’s edition. It’s just there, seemingly free. In fact, it’s less a matter of whether you want to pay for it, but rather if you even want it.
In the end, news media can’t compete with the unending stream of free news via Twitter, Google, etc. Maybe it’s not of the highest quality, but it’s instantaneous and it works just fine for most.
I subscribed to the New York Times from 10th Grade up until last September. (I am 41). I stopped subscribing simply as a matter of economics, why pay for something that is free?
I will probably be willing to return paying for the New York Times as a result of this announcement.
This is BS – I say charge the people who live outside of New York and read the paper – it’s *my* hometown paper, not yours.
I think the most obnoxious thing about all of this isn’t the fact that I may need to pay for them now (at most, I read 100 articles a month from them), but that I will no longer be able to get my news from them in my RSS reader.
I think you still will be able to use an RSS reader, just with the truncated versions of stories. You’ll have to pay to get through to the whole story.
This is bad. They loose visitors many, because of paid subscription.
I dont agree with them.
And I used to be such a fan of The New York Times. Time to uninstall their app…
Wait till they start charging – if people dump them now then they won’t see as sharp a drop as they should when they start charging. Let them have the “oh god, we killed the company” feeling the day after they switch it on.
So you only value what is free? How do you expect them to monetize enough to stay afloat?
NYT has to do what everybody else is dong -downsize, expand online platform, diversify media formats beyond print, partner with other sites.. There are some money in pay for content model, but there is no growth there, only decline. This is not the age of few big news/media companies, but rather the age of multiple small ones. With the further integration of facebook, twitter, blogs in ppls daily lives NYT will have to share the market even more and they are already doing it.This is the only direction to go. For good or for bad – time will tell.
This really depends on how they implement this. If this is done by cookies, it will never affect me, even though I read most NYT articles. I clear my cookies daily, so no problem there.
They could try to make readers register to read articles and track things that way, but the problem with that is it will discourage casual readers, like the people who click through from Google News.
Several other issues:
1) Will they keep publishing on their RSS feed?
2) How will NYT handle archived newspapers. Say I am looking at an article from 1999, or earlier, for some reason(research?). Will I get charged for that?
Didn’t they try this already and it fail?
It will take them another 12 months to start this? They are too slow.
Here’s a different approach:
1) Have a generic article page. This page has no navigation, multiple unobtrusive ads, you can view this page, nothing else. Page used to allow search engines, blogs, etc to link to your content.
2) Have a paid site, with navigation, all articles, and no ads (fat chance eh?).
This model gives those that find you via search the same access, but allows those who truly value your content on a daily basis a premium way to view your content. Everyone else is forced to rely on a search engine and can’t even visit your site.
I think this could work if the NYT is smart about how they implement the pay wall. There is no chance that I’d pay to read wire articles, regurgitated press releases and the like. Those should stay free and be advertising-supported.
I am OK with the idea of paying to read things I’d have to buy anyway, i.e. the T Magazine articles. It’s those in-depth articles that I’m most willing to pay to read. If the NYT can up their quality to where most of their stores are like that than a pay wall can be successful. No matter what I’m sure their readership will drop off once the wall goes up. If they expect every current visitor to pay, they’re doomed to fail. Hopefully their model accounts for a modest initial buy-in.
“I am OK with the idea of paying to read things I’d have to buy anyway…”
But you don’t have to buy them on the web. I think you know that, and that’s why you’re only “OK” with paying. There may be some truth regarding quality control for paid content, but it’s minor and diminishing.
IMO, I think your basic premise fails because you assert that you have to “buy anyway”. That’s not the case on the web. There are many many reputable journalists on the web that attract interest, advertisers, and revenue without charging readers directly for content.
Unfortunately for NYT and others like them, there aren’t enough outliers such as yourself to keep them in business.
I think it’s a good move. The product itself is extremely good, I could essentially spend a whole day reading it. For those that are heavy readers and have a clear conscience, you really shouldn’t feel bad about paying for the what the NY Times offers. With the slow institutionalization of paid content through the likes of iTunes etc, I think that even in a years time when 2011 rolls around, people will have another year of experience under their belt be more open to paying for content. It’s a slow but steady de-sensitization to opening up your wallet for the Internet.
I probably read 10-15 NY Times articles/day and can’t think of how I would get the same dosage of information in an easy to consume form.
NYT will make the same mistake as NewsDay.
I read an article and saw a video on LifeHacker titled “Get Free Access to Pay-Walled Content with a Simple Google Hack”. Here is the link:
http://bit.ly/7fosT3
It states that: Due to a possible bug in the implementation, the registration prompt gets bypassed for Google visitors giving them free access to all the news articles — even the premium content meant for subscribers.
It works like this. You first copy the web address of any news article that is behind the registration firewall and paste that URL into the Google Search box. Now click the first Google result and you’ll be able to read the full text of the corresponding story without registering or subscribing.
This tells me PayWalls are going to have a tough time making money. “It does not work”. It is like selling lemonade in your closet or Selling stock on toy phone.
Also newspaper NewsDay put up a paywall, look at the chart after PayWall it is not good: http://bit.ly/6gKch9
Sadly, like most all newspapers, their model does not work in the 21st century and they will go BANKRUPT soon unless they figure it out.
Unfortunately the TImes has not figured it out This is really sad to see as I suspect that will be the final nail in their coffin.
Non financial news simply MUST be free. People expect and demand it. You can’t change the model in mid stream. Their 17 million on line readers are NOT loyal and the vast majority will bail and find their news elsewhere and suspect many “pirated” versions of the TImes content will also appear that bypass their paid model.
There simply is no way you can charge for this content and survive. The internet changed all the rules
What they fail to realize and what Google and Facebook get is that once you have the eyeballs you need to sell them something, either like Google and FB does with targeted ads, or sell them products directly.
Will really miss the NY Times but sure seems like this is their death knell.
Paying for digital news. Sounds like what the Video Professor teaches in his Videos.
My advice to the journalists at NYT is to jump ship. You are the ones with the resources to information and reader interest. Start or join a blog or news feed. You need to sell your celebrity and credibility. The NYT is just feeding off of your connections and trying to force readers into an unnatural and uncomfortable pay relationship. That’s been shown not to work. Look at history.
All big print monoliths are going to fail because of the web. The web has trashed their distribution monopoly. Content producers are the value now, not the content distributors.
NYT and all other ilk, instead of trying to manhandle internet user behaviors, try and understand them so you can make money and not fail.
Wise move, IMO.
According to CrunchBase, NewYork Times got 250M of funding. Huh?
Tycoon Carlos SLim Helu funded them 250 M.
Thats like saying Goldman Sachs is funded by Warren Buffet.
nyt.com is one of the most sophisticated sites on the internet, very attuned to SEO as well as developing new and interactive ways to present journalism. I’d be willing to pay for that, and also, I think the people behind the site, particularly Khoi Vinh, are smart enough to make this work.
“nyt.com is one of the most sophisticated sites on the internet, very attuned to SEO as well as developing new and interactive ways to present journalism.”
Being “sophisticated” on the web today is pretty much a prerequisite. There are a lot of sites that fall into that category. However, very few of them use paywalls or meters because they simply drive users to other sources. I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “herding cats” – welcome to the internet.
Sure, there are those like you who will fork over $$ each time you simply read information from a comfortable source. But, unfortunately for NYT, there are not enough of you to pay all their bills.
hmmmm … i like reading Times online site but wonder how many out there are willing to pay like Bob. Times once had a subscription based system in place but abandoned it.
SEO? One of the arguments in favor of you forking over your dough is that they do a good job of allowing search engines to crawl their content? Hmm.
The online media world will change more this year than any year in the past 20. Credible information providers can longer survive being dependent upon advertising only. At some point even TechCrunch will not be making enough money to cover the cost of providing relevant and creditable content. It will have to figure out a new way to increase revenue in order to stay up to date with the rising costs of doing business.
Yes you can find other places to read similar content; however, the source is probably less accurate, not fact checked and heavy jaded by personal opinion. People will accept this and pay for it. Pretty soon you will see Facebook start charging a monthly fee because investors want their money back.
Also, the individuals willing to pay and stick around are ten times more valuable to brand advertisers than the one timer. Only advertisers who are looking to reach one timers are the ad networks who just looking for inventory. The ones committed to spending really dollars look for a loyal audience.
Keep up the great work NY Times!
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How many people use ad-blockers now? Fair few, right?
How long do you think it will take for people to write paywall-blocker plugins?
And all they need to do is clear the paywall site’s cookies on every visit. Easy. The sites can’t meter based on IP or users from companies and on proxies would be blocked.
Bad idea. Will not work. To work requires account ( that is useable on web/mobile/tablet/etc). Most web users find registering/signing in too much.
Better yet, simply create a “NYTimes app” for the web version ( similar to what you have for iphone/android models) , one lite/elite/premium/pro. And let users switch as they see fit.
If it works, won’t all the reliable sources of free information dry up?
Why put stuff on the web when the NY Times, the WSJ, FT, etc. can get paid?
Five years from now, nothing worth reading will be free. All the reliable, good stuff will cost you money. All the crap will still be free.
what they need to change is what they won’t: their big glitzy office, their company perks, their salaries…everything about the company is wrong for this era. compare nytimes to techcrunch…arrington bootstrapped his thing out of a rented house and still doesn’t have glossy digs and likely never will. and his staff is miniscule…yet he does as much original, impactful reporting.
big manhattan offices are yesteryear for companies like this. nytimes needs to head out to an office park in jersey, get people wearing trackpants to work, and limit the perks to free coffee
Precisely.
Oh yeah, and get rid of most of upper and middle management.
The days of the bloated over-sized organizations distributing news content are numbered.