The New York Times and Paid Content
Can paid content keep the Times afloat? Photo by Dominik via Flickr
Well, it appears that the NY Times has decided that it is finally time to provide some of its content online for a fee. This isn’t a new idea. In fact, they did it from 2005-2007.
They were even successful in doing it, bringing in about $10 million in revenue annually from it. Eventually, they discontinued the practice because many articles were inaccessible to people that found the articles through search engines, costing them page views. So, since the NYT believed that there was so much potential growth in online advertising and much less in subscription revenues, they discontinued the subscriptions in order to grow their traffic and maximize their online advertising revenue.
So, why have they changed their minds and done an about face? Well, in truth it isn’t an about face. The approach that they are taking is just a bit different. Instead of putting some articles behind a pay wall, they are proposing to allow a given user access to a certain number of articles a month for free and then charging for access to additional articles. What that charge will be isn’t clear from their press release.
This plan sounds like a good middle ground to me because it allows users that find links to stories through search engines to get access to the stories. (Unless of course they access a lot of stories in a month.) That allows people to discover Times content and keep their page views from dropping too much, which would reduce their online advertising revenue. It also allows the Times to capture some extra revenue from their die hard fans, who would probably be more than happy to contribute a few dollars to continue to get the quality content they enjoy.
Now, while I think this is a great way for the New York Times to capture some additional revenue to continue paying their reporters, I don’t think it will garner them a substantial amount of money. While the Wall Street Journal has been quite successful charging for content online, they have a readership that is more highly skewed toward business managers with much higher incomes. For that audience, a subscription to the Journal is cheap and in many cases, their companies cover it. I doubt that is the case for the Times. Plus, I doubt that the Times delivers the type of content that large numbers of people would feel is worth paying for when many other news outlets cover the same stories for free.
I know that if I hit a pay wall for the New York Times, I’d probably find the content elsewhere. Even if the content wasn’t available elsewhere, an article or two wouldn’t be enough to get me into a subscription. If I could put a couple bucks into an account and then pay $0.25 for an article that I couldn’t find elsewhere though, I’d probably do that. If the Times were determined to get me to subscribe, they would have to take it a bit farther and give me ad free access to their content. That limits their online advertising view numbers, but makes a value proposition that I would find compelling. Would the number of people that feel like me be high enough for the effort to be worthwhile to the Times? Probably not, but it might be worth experimenting with, just in case.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the Times’ efforts to get paid for their content online. I’m actually hoping they find a way to make paid content work on the web because if they and others don’t, we’re going to have less and less in depth reporting and much more content that is put out without a gatekeeper to ensure its quality. While I don’t want content gatekeepers to rule the web, I think they have their place to help keep everyone else honest.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see. We’ll find out more details from the New York Times over the next few months about how the new pay model will work. I’ll definitely be interested to see how it does, as will everyone else providing content online. I wish them good luck!
So, would you pay for online content from the Times or another online news source? Vote in the poll and chime in below in the comments.
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I think the WSJ can charge because most of its readers see it as an indispensable resource for business. While the Times may be great, in the Internet age, it’s just another news source. And if I can get the information somewhere else for free, I will.