New York, NY – New York Times Co. may charge for access to its flagship newspaper’s Web site less than two years after terminating an earlier online-subscription service.
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The company is studying whether to start charging for all or some of the content on nytimes.com, as well as other options, Executive Editor Bill Keller said today in an online question-and-answer session. Most of the site is free.
“A lively, deadly serious discussion continues within the Times about ways to get consumers to pay for what we make,” he said. “Really good information, often extracted from reluctant sources, truth-tested, organized and explained — that stuff wants to be paid for.”
The third-largest U.S. newspaper publisher, which posted a 48 percent decline in fourth-quarter profit, is cutting jobs and selling assets as advertising and circulation dwindle.
It’s seeking buyers for its stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team and a portion of its Manhattan headquarters building.
In 2007, the newspaper scrapped an online-subscription service called Times Select that generated about $10 million in revenue annually. The service limited the number of readers available to advertisers, said Keller.
“The lesson of that experiment, however, was not that readers won’t pay for content,” he said, pointing out that News Corp.’s Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times have paid- subscription Web sites.
Keller said the company was considering charging readers for each page they click on or making the newspaper available on a wider variety of portable electronic devices, as it is on Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle.
“Some people are paying for the Times online,” the executive editor wrote. “Just not enough of them. So far.”
New York Times gained 24 cents to $5.10 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have lost 70 percent in the past 12 months.
ha, I hope they do. It will merely drive online readership away from this junky paper.
Good that what will bring them some cash/less readers. looks loke they havnt a clue economics.
Who cares as long as VIN news remains free
i stopped my subscription a few years ago because of its leftist antijew/israel views. I will not view its website and it wont get revenue generating “hits”.
Great!!! Let even less people read that farshtinkener tabloid.
i would never pay to read the NYT…it’s bad enough that i read it for free…
The whole super liberal paper is going down the tubes because they are so liberal, and openminded, that there is nothing left inside their heads besides hollow shells. They cater to the illegals, and take their side and the anti-Jewish route whenever possible. This is what happened to big nations with anti-Jewish super liberalmindedness, it will happen to the papers as well.. I say good riddance to BAD rubbish!
One need not read the Times for the new – but the rest of the paper, science , education, arts etc is a full scale education
I don’t know how much they can charge to make it worthwhile to read the rag. perhaps they should pay us to log on so that they can get advertising revenue.
I think that newspapers for adults is like schools for children. Our society is so great because of the knowledge. So maby it should be financed by the government.