The Times Paywall Finally Goes Up

The New York Times announced today that its new paywall has gone up for readers in Canada, and that the paywall for the United States and the rest of the world will go up on March 28. According to the email I got, the rollout in Canada will allow the company "to fine-tune the customer experience before [the] global launch." Does this mean that if our experience is bad, we can blame Canada?

Readers will be able to view twenty articles per month, and after that level is reached, will not be able to view anything more unless they are digital subscribers. I was happy to see that "Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit." That seems like a reasonable approach to me, and one that should help to keep Times stories in wide circulation. Here's New York magazine's take on the paywall. The Times is gambling that regular visitors to the website will be willing to pay to access it. The question really boils down to whether the Times and other newspapers can "reverse 15 years of consumer behavior and build a business around online subscriptions?" It's safe to say that newspapers, both in the United States and around the world, will be watching.

The New York Times: Too Little, Too Late?

Like many other people, I have been waiting for The New York Times to announce when it would begin charging for access to its website. The silence has been deafening since the initial announcement fourteen months ago. Every so often, I would see news (sometimes no more than informed speculation) about the Times's plans on other news organizations' websites, but there was nothing from the Times itself. On Sunday, the silence was finally broken, but in a mea culpa op-ed piece that acknowledged the paper's failures in implementing the new plan, but neglected to provide any details whatsoever about the plan itself. I understand that the management of the company wants to have everything in place before making the announcement and cutting over to the new website, but they have had months to figure out the details. Shouldn't a plan have been in the works before the Times announced such a significant change in its business model? While the Times has been dithering, its readers have grown more accustomed to getting their news for free, and may well see paying to read the Times as a luxury they can do without if they can get their news for free from other sites.

End of the Print New York Times?

The New York Times is the "newspaper of record," probably the most respected and best known paper published in the United States today. Although it is the hometown newspaper for the New York City metropolitan area and a reliable source for stories of local interest, it is also national and international in the scope of its coverage. Like most other newspapers, the Times has been struggling with crafting a business model that will enable it to be relevant and financially solvent in an era when people have so many ways, many of them free, to get their news. The newspaper erected a paywall and took it down again in 2007 because of disappointing revenues, and has announced that it will start charging for content again in 2011. Times articles will continue to be accessible to search engines.

This history (and the fact that I once worked for a Times subsidiary) explains my interest when my colleague Jack McNeill pointed out a posting in today's Huffington Post. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, "acknowledged Wednesday that the newspaper will go out of print--eventually." He did not provide any idea of how soon this might happen. Nor did he provide any insights about the company's long-term plans except to say that media companies need to remain flexible and open to new approaches. His remarks were made at the WAN-IFRA 9th Annual International Newsroom Summit in London. More information about Sulzberger's remarks is available here. According to Business Insider founder Henry Blodget , the basic problem is this:

'The economics of the online news business will not support the infrastructure or newsroom that the printed paper supports. Unless the New York Times Company can come up with a miracle new digital revenue stream, therefore, it will eventually have to be restructured and downsized (or sold to a deep-pocketed Sydney Harmon-type [sic] who runs it at a loss out of love).' [Sidney Harmon recently purchased Newsweek magazine and is attempting to revive it.]

The online Wall Street Journal now charges for access, and seems to be successful. Is this because it occupies a niche position and readers don't have many options for the content it offers? Is it because Journal readers are more affluent and can afford to pay for content? Is what the Times offers sufficiently unique and valuable that users will pay for it, or will they get their news elsewhere? What makes a paper like the Times special is the quality of the reporting, and this is expensive. If it doesn't have the revenue to pay for the reporting, will it become just another newspaper and lose the qualities that make it special?

The Times to Erect a Pay Wall

In 2007, The New York Times dropped a pay wall after failing to realize expected revenues. Many online readers breathed a sigh of relief, and continued to enjoy the free online content. Now, however, The Times is planning to "announce the introduction of a so-called 'pay wall' before the much-rumoured launch of Apple's new tablet computer, which is thought to be specially designed for easy newspaper reading, on January 27." This report comes from an article in the Telegraph, a British newspaper. The Telegraph reports that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the Times Company chairman, favors "a metered use policy similar to The Financial Times, which allows readers to access some articles for free before they are forced to subscribe." The Financial Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, as is The Wall Street Journal, which also charges for content. In fact, News Corporation is planning to "introduce charging for all the company's newspaper websites, including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and News of the World. My colleague Vicky Gannon, who sent me the link to the Telegraph article, says it's one thing to charge for The Times, but quite another to charge for The Sun and News of the World, which do not exactly qualify as high-quality content. It looks as if paid access to online newspapers is the wave of the future, and in fact newspapers have to make money from their content if they are survive. Advertising revenues are not enough to sustain a major news-gathering operation. "More than 1,200 news organisations worldwide have signed up with Journalism Online, a new media payment firm whose clients are expected to start rolling out fees soon." It's hard to imagine that most people are going to pay for subscriptions to more than one or two newspapers, making it inevitable that some newspapers will simply not be competitive in the online environment.