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New York Times opens to the masses

For journalists and Web evangelists who believe content deserves to be free, The New York Times is the media darling of the moment.

That’s because the respected US publication is changing tack by making the content on its website free-to-view, after two years of imposing fees for certain editorial.

As of late last night, all visitors to The Times’ website can view the paper’s entire array of opinion pieces and comments, some of which were previously reserved for subscribers.

TimesSelect, as the subscription service was known, imposed a fee of $49.95 a year or $7.95 a month, and generated about $10m in annual revenue, the New York Times said.

But in an article on its website, the NYT hinted that the takings of the service aren’t enough to justify it continuing any longer, although, overall, the service had met financial expectations.

Axing its pay-to-view model, the paper said, reflects “a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.”

The move has come about because many more readers than the NYT anticipated came in from search engines like Google and links to the paper, instead of coming directly to its homepage.

“These indirect readers, unable to gain access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.” the NYT said.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922.

Sep 19, 2007
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