NY Times Site Soon No Longer Free?

BusinessWeek has an excellent piece on the economic challenges facing the New York Times. Perhaps the most interesting quote comes not from publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. — though he is the main interviewee — but from Orville Schell, dean of the University of California at Berkeley's journalism school. In what appears to be a reference to blogs, among other things, Schell opines that

>> The Roman Empire that was mass media is breaking up, and we are entering an almost-feudal period where there will be many more centers of power and influence. It's a kind of disaggregation of the molecular structure of the media. <<

The article also addresses the Times' digital future. Currently, the entire newspaper can be read online for free, though one-time registration is required and articles that are more than a week old cost $2.95 a pop. Competitor the Wall Street Journal has been successfully running a paid site for years, charging $79 annually or $39 for readers of the print edition. Will the Times also move to a paid model? It's a tough decision.

>> New York Times Digital (which includes Boston.com as well as NYTimes.com) netted an enviable $17.3 million on revenues of $53.1 million during the first half of 2004, the last period for which its financials have been disclosed. All indications are that the digital unit is continuing to grow at 30% to 40% a year, making it NYT Co.'s fastest-revving growth engine.

Advertising accounts for almost all of the digital operation's revenues, but disagreement rages within the company over whether NYTimes.com should emulate The Wall Street Journal and begin charging a subscription fee. Undoubtedly, many of the site's 18 million unique monthly visitors would flee if hit with a $39.95 or even a $9.95 monthly charge. One camp within the NYT Co. argues that such a massive loss of Web traffic would cost the Times dearly in the long run, both by shrinking the audience for its journalism and by depriving it of untold millions in ad revenue. The counterargument is that the Times would more than make up for lost ad dollars by boosting circulation revenue — both from online fees and new print subscriptions paid for by people who now read for free on the Web.

Sulzberger declines to take a side in this debate, but sounds as if he is leaning toward a pay site. “It gets to the issue of how comfortable are we training a generation of readers to get quality information for free,” he says. “That is troubling.” <<

The BusinessWeek piece is good readin' . Step this way.

Comments

[katie carr]

can i have two please