The (New York) Times Are Changing: NYTimes.com Ends TimesSelect Subscription Program
If you enjoy reading The New York Times’ columnists online like I do, but don’t like the idea of paying for it (same!), you’re in luck: it was announced today that The New York Times will end its TimesSelect program, opening up a number of areas of the site, including some of its vast archives, to the public for free.
The Times claims that it generates $10 million a year from the program off 227,000 subscribers (people who buy print subscriptions were automatically included in the program as well), but that the lure of online advertising revenue based on page views is the rationale for ending the program.
TimesSelect was an interesting experiment to see if people would pay for highly valued content. However, free content supported by online advertising is the overwhelmingly dominant model, so it makes sense for The New York Times to follow suit.
Will The Wall Street Journal be next?
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September 18th, 2007 at 11:03 am
[…] Eric Berlin queries if the Wall Street Journal is next […]
September 18th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
It was like a trial run for tiered services. Will web users pay more for a piece of the NY Times? (No.) For faster access to Google and eBay? (Not if they have a fair say in it.)
Will the cable TV model dominate the Internet in the end? If so, basic Internet access will consist of 500 web sites and nothing on.
Net neutrality isn’t just a clever phrase.
September 19th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Dirk, it seems like you’re implying that free/ad-supported Internet content will drive down quality in some way? I’m intrigued by the notion but I can’t help disagreeing. I think that free/ad supported is simply the model that’s holding, and high quality publishers will find a way to to make the economics work.
For newspapers the transition will be the most painful by far, which is why you see smart companies like NYT experimenting with economic models (though Jeff Jarvis would strongly disagree with me, I think!) and acquiring a host of online properties.
September 19th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
“Dirk, it seems like you’re implying that free/ad-supported Internet content will drive down quality in some way?”
—–
In the short run, yes. I would argue that it already has. The proliferation of digital “news” outlets means there is more pipe to fill than talent available to fill it–but I suspect this will change over time, as professional writers continue to make their way (did they jump or were they pushed?) online.
It seems to me that newspapers could survive, if they find a revenue stream to make up for the loss of classified ads. Magazines, however, are in deep trouble, due to long lead times and the kind of editorial gatekeeping that led many young writers to the web in the first place.
I am cheered by your optimism about high quality online publishers finding a way to make money. But if high quality print publishers can no longer do it–even with a paid subscriber base–I’m not sure banner ads are going to fill the gap.
September 19th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Eric, WSJ could certainly be next…as Murdoch hinted - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20837182/
September 20th, 2007 at 12:59 am
Dirk, I agree that there’s certainly an enormous number of media sources, creating a virtually infinite amount of “blank space” to fill in terms of content (but the Internets are trying to fill ‘em, ain’t they?). But I’d argue that there’s much more high quality content than ever before. So while there’s lots of low quality content to be sure (and this brand of content isn’t native to the online world, by the way!), the online world helps drive up the volume of overall quality content offerings in my view.
Esperanca - Yes, very intriguing!
September 20th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Hi Eric:
I think you’re right about online reporting serving as a useful wake-up call for an increasingly moribund group of traditional print news outlets. Has this competition driven up quality in the print world? Perhaps, but mostly they seem to be running around in frightened circles.
Seems to me the print people panicked and embraced the blogosphere well before the blogosphere was worth embracing. But that fault lies with print editors, not bloggers. It’s not the bloggers’ fault that they were elevated to the status of world-class journalists well before most of them deserved it.
September 21st, 2007 at 9:18 am
Well, I see embracing the blogosphere as a good thing!
Really though, to take a step back, online vs. print and “traditional online media outlet” vs. blogosphere is a discussion of distribution means, right? The quality of news (or entertainment) content is a different discussion, though may overlap in some ways, than this one.
In my view, the proliferation of both online media outlets and the blogosphere (and the consequent intersecting of the two) is a good thing for consumers of content and publishers.
When I say “publishers” I mean all publishers, including and especially web publishers, who may happen to be journalists, bloggers, journalists-who-blog, writers-who-get-paid-by-a-media-organization, etc.
This massive change in distribution and scale is shaking up traditional media, there’s no doubt, and the shake out will continue for years to come. And there are many issues with how to find, access, and consume the good stuff from the junk. But I strongly believe that for the public, the number and quality and variety of quality content sources is greater than ever before. And, importantly, it’s easier and cheaper than ever to access them.