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Starting today in Canada, 20 items per month for free on the website. Their subscription rate is twice that of unlimited Netflix streaming. 
And that doesn't even include smartphone or tablet viewing.
Fail.
And that doesn't even include smartphone or tablet viewing.
N.Y. Times unveils pay wall: Canada first
The New York Times Co. (NYT-N9.190.333.72%)has finally unveiled details about the long-awaited pay wall plan for its website, in a bid to begin drawing revenue from readers online – and it’s coming to Canada first.
The plan to charge for articles on the newspaper’s website was announced last year. In January 2010, the company said it would implement a payment plan for the Web starting some time in 2011. On Thursday, the Times said that the pay plan will launch in Canada immediately, and will come to the rest of the world on March 28.
The newspaper appears to be using Canadian readers as guinea pigs for the paid Web experience. “The Times is launching digital subscriptions in the Canadian market beginning today in order to fine-tune the customer experience prior to the global launch,” the company said in a statement.
As expected, readers will still be allowed to access a certain amount of articles on the website for free, but there is now a limit. Once a reader has viewed 20 articles in a given month, that reader will be asked to pay to keep the site open. All print subscribers – whether they get weeklong delivery or only weekends – will get everything digital for free if they register their accounts.
Digital subscriptions start at $15 (U.S.) for four weeks. That base plan gives full access to the website as well as a New York Times application for smart phones. That is the plan currently available to Canadians. At the time of the global launch, two other plans will also be available: $20 for reading on the website and on the application for tablet devices such as the iPad, and $35 for access across all digital and mobile platforms.
“Our decision to begin charging for digital access will result in another source of revenue, strengthening our ability to continue to invest in the journalism and digital innovation on which our readers have come to depend,” The New York Times Co. chairman and publisher of the paper Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. said in a statement. “This move will enhance The Times's position as a source of trustworthy news, information and high-quality opinion for many years to come.”
This is yet another kick at the can for The New York Times’s pay wall. It tried to charge for digital access in 1996, but only attracted roughly 4,000 digital subscribers. It was scrapped. Then in 2005 the paper launched the TimesSelect service, asking for $50 (U.S.) a year to read content by the paper's columnists on the website. Far more readers bought in that time, and TimesSelect pulled in roughly $10-million annually. But limiting how many people look at the site also limits its attractiveness to advertisers. Web ad revenue fell, and that experiment ended in 2007.
Now The Times is trying again, but will still have to strike that balance between pulling in revenue from readers and hurting its ad sales. In a research note released in January looking forward to the pay wall, UBS analyst John Janedis, who has a Sell rating on the company’s stock because of a weak print environment, estimated roughly 20 per cent of the paper’s digital advertising revenues could be at risk. Pricing is also an issue, he wrote.
“We think there is a fine balance between pricing too high & limiting new [subscriptions] vs. too low and cannibalizing the print version, though potentially significantly increasing subscriptions.”
Other news outlets currently work on the pay wall model – most prominently the Wall Street Journal, which usually charges $2.99 per week for access to its website. In an interesting bit of timing, the site is currently promoting a special discount for Canadian subscribers who sign up now. It’s offering the site for $1.99 per week – still higher than The Times’s initial promotional price, which starts at 99 cents (U.S.) for four weeks before raising up to the regular price.
But many other websites, offer much of their Web content for free. The iconic New York-based paper has been a bellwether for the industry in the past; the question now is whether other news outlets will follow its lead and begin launching their own digital subscriptions.
The New York Times Co. (NYT-N9.190.333.72%)has finally unveiled details about the long-awaited pay wall plan for its website, in a bid to begin drawing revenue from readers online – and it’s coming to Canada first.
The plan to charge for articles on the newspaper’s website was announced last year. In January 2010, the company said it would implement a payment plan for the Web starting some time in 2011. On Thursday, the Times said that the pay plan will launch in Canada immediately, and will come to the rest of the world on March 28.
The newspaper appears to be using Canadian readers as guinea pigs for the paid Web experience. “The Times is launching digital subscriptions in the Canadian market beginning today in order to fine-tune the customer experience prior to the global launch,” the company said in a statement.
As expected, readers will still be allowed to access a certain amount of articles on the website for free, but there is now a limit. Once a reader has viewed 20 articles in a given month, that reader will be asked to pay to keep the site open. All print subscribers – whether they get weeklong delivery or only weekends – will get everything digital for free if they register their accounts.
Digital subscriptions start at $15 (U.S.) for four weeks. That base plan gives full access to the website as well as a New York Times application for smart phones. That is the plan currently available to Canadians. At the time of the global launch, two other plans will also be available: $20 for reading on the website and on the application for tablet devices such as the iPad, and $35 for access across all digital and mobile platforms.
“Our decision to begin charging for digital access will result in another source of revenue, strengthening our ability to continue to invest in the journalism and digital innovation on which our readers have come to depend,” The New York Times Co. chairman and publisher of the paper Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. said in a statement. “This move will enhance The Times's position as a source of trustworthy news, information and high-quality opinion for many years to come.”
This is yet another kick at the can for The New York Times’s pay wall. It tried to charge for digital access in 1996, but only attracted roughly 4,000 digital subscribers. It was scrapped. Then in 2005 the paper launched the TimesSelect service, asking for $50 (U.S.) a year to read content by the paper's columnists on the website. Far more readers bought in that time, and TimesSelect pulled in roughly $10-million annually. But limiting how many people look at the site also limits its attractiveness to advertisers. Web ad revenue fell, and that experiment ended in 2007.
Now The Times is trying again, but will still have to strike that balance between pulling in revenue from readers and hurting its ad sales. In a research note released in January looking forward to the pay wall, UBS analyst John Janedis, who has a Sell rating on the company’s stock because of a weak print environment, estimated roughly 20 per cent of the paper’s digital advertising revenues could be at risk. Pricing is also an issue, he wrote.
“We think there is a fine balance between pricing too high & limiting new [subscriptions] vs. too low and cannibalizing the print version, though potentially significantly increasing subscriptions.”
Other news outlets currently work on the pay wall model – most prominently the Wall Street Journal, which usually charges $2.99 per week for access to its website. In an interesting bit of timing, the site is currently promoting a special discount for Canadian subscribers who sign up now. It’s offering the site for $1.99 per week – still higher than The Times’s initial promotional price, which starts at 99 cents (U.S.) for four weeks before raising up to the regular price.
But many other websites, offer much of their Web content for free. The iconic New York-based paper has been a bellwether for the industry in the past; the question now is whether other news outlets will follow its lead and begin launching their own digital subscriptions.
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