It’s official.
After nearly a year of mulling, the New York Times today announced its plan to charge for access to its Web site.
The Times says it needs to “create a second revenue stream” -- one that is not so closely tied to advertising economy. The move will also "provide the necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web,” the Times says.
They’re calling it a “metered” model, and it will start in 2011.
Here are some details:
* Users will get free access to a set number of articles per month.
* Once they exceed that number, they'll be charged a yet-to-be-announced fee.
* New York Times home delivery print subscribers will continue to have free access to NYTimes.com.
* The paper will spend the rest of 2010 building the infrastructure to support the model.
* The Times will implement the “meter” beginning in 2011.
More details, including the magic number of articles per month and – one would assume – price, will be announced in the "coming months."
Here’s the memo to staffers from Times Co. heads Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and Janet Robinson on today’s announcement:
---------- Original message ----------
From: NYTIMES MAIL
Date: 2010/1/20
Subject: On the Record - A Message from Arthur and Janet
To: [REDACTED]
Vol. 1 2010: An Important Decision about Our Future
Today we are announcing that we will be introducing a paid model for NYTimes.com at the beginning of 2011. As you will see in the press release, we have chosen a metered approach that will offer users free access to a set number of articles per month and then charge users once they exceed that number.
The metered model implementation is an integral part of our comprehensive plan for enhancing NYTimes.com. In 2010 we will continue initiatives such as Times Open, Times Topics and our work to develop more active communities and more fully integrate the real-time Web. We will continue to develop new online products and offerings as part of our effort to enhance the user experience for our readers and advertisers.
Our strategy is to build the metered model while we remain focused on making NYTimes.com more compelling, interactive and entertaining, providing many more reasons for online audiences to visit our site and stay longer. In the weeks ahead, we will be adding resources to achieve these critically important goals.
Since NYTimes.com is, by a variety of standards, one of the world’s most popular and successful news Web sites, why are we changing our model at all?
We are doing so because we believe that a second revenue stream will be an important part of our future. While digital advertising will continue to be the major contributor to our success on the Web, we expect that online subscription revenue will improve our ability to grow an important part of this business.
Fundamentally, this is an important step in our effort to support The New York Times’s high-quality, professional journalism.
