The New York Times has realised that internet advertising will generate more revenue than subscriptions, and abandoned the TimesSelect subscription service.
TimesSelect held archives, their highly rated columnists and other material. Apparently TimesSelect made $10m per year, but I would think the NYTime columnists alone should be able to generate that value in increased ads from the increased traffic to their columns and the site.
Vivian L Schiller, SVP and GM of NYTimes.com said:
..our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising
That is, making people pay for the product was reducing readership growth, and you make more money out of advertising to many than getting subscriptions from few. Media companies take note.
Now that, after two years, the site is free again, bloggers and other readers will once again show the importance of Krugman, Dowd, Friedman, Kristof and the other columnists, who no doubt were very frustrated at their limited readership and loss of relevance.
Where the NYTimes messed up was in the growth of ‘long tail’ traffic – potential readers that came to random articles via Google, Yahoo and bloggers. Those readers were frustrated by the pay and subscription wall, and so turned away.
I’ve often said that only two or three news sites have had the ability to charge for content – The Economist, WSJ and NYTimes. They are the papers of record. Now that two of them have stopped, and rumors have it that News Corp will set the WSJ free, perhaps it is time for the terrible AFR.com.au to throw out their strategy, subscriptions and flash based website and start again.
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Lance Wiggs 