NYTimes.com paid wall debuts: Will it last?

By Robert Niles. Posted: 2005-09-19

The New York Times today put Op-Ed, Business, Metro and Sports columnists behind a paid wall online. Print subscribers to the New York Times will be able to read that content online at no additional cost, but non-subscribers will have to pay a $49.95 annual fee. The "TimesSelect" plan also includes access to up to 100 articles a month from the Times online archives.

Times spokesperson Diane McNulty writes that the paper has plans for some of its writers whose print work is walled off to start writing weblogs later this year.

The Los Angeles Times earlier this year ended it attempt to put repurposed newspaper content behind a paid wall, reopening access to its Calendar section online.

Will the New York Times succeed where the Los Angeles Times failed? If not, when do you predict the NYT will abandon the TimesSelect wall? (Heck, let's make this a contest: I'll send an OJR goodie bag to whoever comes closest in predicting the date of the announcement. Submit your comments/guesses using the link below.)

Comments:

From Jon Garfunkel on September 19, 2005 at 3:30 PM

I'm absolutely delighted to have TimesSelect. I'm a paid subscriber, and I'm happy to have that relationship recognized. I like having more access to the archives now.

I remember several months back that the conventional blogging wisdom was that this was a bad thing. I was in the midst of constructing a point why more people should celebrate the fact of a business model being introduced... I'll get to that this evening.

From Patrick Murphy on September 20, 2005 at 10:47 AM

You have to wonder why opinion columns were singled out. Could be that these are what's most distinctive about NYT (people can get news anywhere) and they are certainly, as a category, the most e-mailed content. So they are the best value proposition of a paid content offering.

Or it could be that they aren't a congenial online advertising environment anyway, so it won't be a great loss if visitors simply live without them. I can't envision anyone crying "I want my NYT!"

Paid content works for WSJ because it's a tax deduction for any investor and subs are often expensed to companies. NYT simply can't understand that they're not in that league, no matter how many times I've told them (in numerous surveys).

Given that NYT is never quick to acknowledge poor judgment, I predict the experiment will last till September 19, 2007.

From Susan Haga on September 20, 2005 at 7:53 PM

I will miss the NYTimes columns of Dowd, Rich, Krugman and others, but I will not pay a subscription fee for online materials. I read Salon nearly every day and not once have I considered joining. I'd rather sit through the ads. The only thing the NYTimes will achieve is a reduced readership for its writers. No one will, nor should we, pay for online content. It a big, free web out there. SH

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