New York Times Metered Paywall: It's real and it's spectacular
The New York Times, arguably the last great hope for quality "traditional" journalism in a Web/blog/Twitter/Facebook world, took the covers off its "metered" paywall strategy today.
It's real and it's spectacular. No really. I kinda like it. Do I think it'll work? I wouldn't bet on it. But it's probably the best attempt at just doing something by a mainstream, big-time general circulation newspaper (i.e. not the Wall Street Journal and its pay model.)
Their strategy takes effect in Canada today (those Canadians are the NYT's guinea pigs. Ha!), and will come to the U.S. on March 28.
From the NYTimes' description of the new way of consuming its news online:
• On NYTimes.com, you can view 20 articles each month at no charge (including slide shows, videos and other features). After 20 articles, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber, with full access to our site.
• On our smartphone and tablet apps, the Top News section will remain free of charge. For access to all other sections within the apps, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber.
• The Times is offering three digital subscription packages that allow you to choose from a variety of devices (computer, smartphone, tablet). More information about these plans is available at www.nytimes.com/access.
• Again, all New York Times home delivery subscribers will receive free access to NYTimes.com and to all content on our apps. If you are a home delivery subscriber, go to http://homedelivery.nytimes.com to sign up for free access.
• 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. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles.
• The home page at NYTimes.com and all section fronts will remain free to browse for all users at all times.
For more information, go to www.nytimes.com/digitalfaq.
Clearly, this is a strategy that lets casual users still partake in Times content. The Times doesn't value those users as much, of course. But if you're checking out Times content more than 20 times a month, that means you're likely a believer in their product and wouldn't mind ponying up some cash to keep it coming. Or would you?
Here's how much cash we're talking about -- from the FAQ:
All digital subscription options will be available globally on March 28, 2011
An NYTimes digital subscription provides ongoing access to our digital content. We offer three options, each of which provides unlimited access to the Web site. The differences between the options are based on which smartphone and/or tablet apps are included. The options and pricing are as follows:
NYTimes.com Plus Smartphone App:* $3.75 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $15.00)
* Unlimited access to NYTimes.com from any device
* Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android-powered phones
NYTimes.com Plus Tablet App:* $5.00 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $20.00)
* Unlimited access to NYTimes.com from any device
* Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for iPad, plus Times Reader 2.0 and the NYTimes App for the Chrome Web Store
All Digital Access:* $8.75 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $35.00)
* Unlimited access to NYTimes.com, plus smartphone apps and tablet apps
* Unlimited access to NYTimes.com from any device
* Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android-powered phones
* Unlimited access to the NYTimes app for iPad, plus Times Reader 2.0 and the NYTimes app for the Chrome Web Store
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Comments
This is something we will probably start to see a lot more of due to the cost of maintaining the newspaper digital business model. Though, if the price gets too high for these subscriptions it will end up hurting them in the long run.
Posted by: Stan | March 17, 2011 1:38 PM
You can't take away what was already there. This is like if WMAR charged to watch the Sally Thorner news. FREDTERP
Posted by: FREDTERP | March 17, 2011 1:59 PM
The problem is that aggregators will just start snatching a larger portion of a story they intend to "share" and link to, and readers will be content to read the summary via sites like Huffington Post, instead of supporting the organization that actually put in the work. I'd like it to succeed but the consumers don't see the long term effects of reading premium content (NYT) on a low quality site (HuffPo)
How is it that at one time we as a society had the ability to buy CDS, subscribe to magazines, and buy newspapers, and now we can't bear the thought of paying a minimal fee for all of these same things?
I don't consider $455 a year a "minimal" fee! -gs
Posted by: Justin | March 17, 2011 2:00 PM
$195 per year doesn't seem like much of a deal at all, I'm guessing their web traffic will plummet. If they set it at $52 per year ($1/week) they would probably get a lot more takers. There are other quality options out there, and I think that most folk will go elsewhere for their news.
Posted by: Jason | March 17, 2011 2:52 PM
Good for the New York Times and good for the journalists who work for them. Why are we so eager to let advertising dictate the availability of quality content? I'm happy to pay for it myself.
Posted by: Atlanta Roofing | March 18, 2011 3:14 AM
I read a very good article on this yesterday which explains how backward thinking the NYT is being.
Basically the point of the article was that they aren't adding any additional value behind the pay wall. They are charging for something that everyone was getting for free before. They aren't adding anything new that would want a standard user to pay for on an ongoing basis.
Then they are going to charge you out the wazoo to read the Times on more than one mobile device. So they are going to lose a ton of online readers, which means a significant number of eyes not looking at the online ads. I guess their hope is that the subscription costs will outweigh the lost ad revenue.
If they were adding something new I think this might make sense. I just don't see with so much free press out there that this will work effectively. The newspaper and the media companies need some new minds that can think forward and not looking in the past.
Posted by: Bill | March 18, 2011 8:24 AM
@FREDTERP- they actually can take away something that was already there for free. Do you read espn.com often? If so, have you noticed, at least in the baseball section of the website, how more and more blog posts and articles have been going towards "ESPN Insider" access only? You have to subscribe to ESPN Insider to read half the articles, and they're usually the more interesting ones. This has been going on at espn.com for the past 5 years. The point is, it has been done and I wouldn't be surprised if NYT and other papers start following suit.
On another note, some posters mentioned advertisements and it got me wondering- if users are now paying to view full content on NYT's website, do they get the benefit of no advertisements, which slow down pages from being loaded up onto their smartphones and computer screens? If so, that would actually make me consider paying to view the online content more than 20x per month. Advertising on websites really annoys me and it ALWAYS slows down an article loading up. I understand that it's a necessary evil to keep things free/cheap, but it's still quite annoying.
Posted by: B | March 20, 2011 12:10 PM