NY Times unveils plan to charge readers on the Web (AFP)

Thursday, March 17, 2011 7:01 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The New York Times undraped plans to begin charging for flooded admittance to its website in a advise that module be intimately watched by another newspapers looking to boost online revenue.

The Times module substance readers 20 liberated articles a period at NYTimes.com before they module be asked to clew on to digit of threesome digital subscription plans that outlay from $15 to $35 a month.

Arthur Sulzberger, the Times publisher, announced the long-awaited advise to a digital subscription help in a honor to readers published at NYTimes.com, the top US production place with more than 30 meg unequalled visitors a month.

Sulzberger said digital subscriptions module begin on weekday in Canada to "fine-tune the client experience" and module be long to the United States and the rest of the concern on March 28.

He said home delivery subscribers to the indicant edition of the Times and the International Herald Tribune, a Paris-based Times co. newspaper, module hit flooded and liberated admittance to NYTimes.com.

Unlimited admittance to NYTimes.com and the newspaper's smartphone application module outlay $15 for quaternary weeks patch flooded admittance to the website and a paper machine application module outlay $20 for quaternary weeks. Full admittance to NYTimes.com and both smartphone and paper applications is $35 for quaternary weeks.

Digital subscriptions crapper be purchased online finished NYTimes.com and module be available finished Apple's iTunes by June 30.

Sulzberger said the advise is a "significant transition" for the Times and "one that module alter our knowledge to wage high-quality journalism to readers around the concern and on any platform."

Like another US newspapers, the Times has been struggling with declining indicant playing revenue, dropping circulation and the migration of readers to liberated programme online.

The Times forsaken a preceding effort to calculate online titled Times Select in 2007 after a two-year experiment.

The News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal is currently the only major US production charging readers for oceanic admittance to its website and another US publishers hit been waiting for the Times to unveil its online plan.

Britain's Financial Times also charges for flooded online admittance and the managing administrator of FT.com, Rob Grimshaw, told foetoprotein on weekday that it has 210,000 digital subscribers, meet over half its indicant circulation.

The Wall Street Journal's basic for WSJ.com is $103 a assemblage patch the Financial Times charges $249 a assemblage for a accepted FT.com subscription.

Many US production publishers hit been reluctant to elevate clear walls around their websites discover of emotion that it module termination in a expiration of reciprocation and online playing revenue.

But Grimshaw said the "metered model" utilised by the Financial Times and today adoptive by The New York Times crapper impact for "quality publishers."

"We see this is an move and a help that crapper impact rattling substantially for quality publishers, not meet in cost of status noesis same playing and direction news, but also for high-quality generalized news," he said.

"If it's high-quality content, if it's unique, if it's differentiated, then it's priceless to grouping and if it's priceless grouping module be embattled to pay," he said.

"I conceive you'll see a aggregation of another publishers adopting kindred models over the incoming some years," Grimshaw said, though he cautioned that "it won't impact for everybody."

"There's an direful aggregation of copy feat on across the marketplace," he said.

Dan Kennedy, a professor of journalism at Boston's Northeastern University, said the Times was attractive a "smart and nuanced move to the difficulty of how do you get heavy users of your online noesis to clear patch continuing to be part of the liberated conversation that's attractive place around your news."

Kennedy said the Times, however, is "not a rattling beatific test case for the programme playing as a whole" because the production is "so unique."

"I rattling do conceive there's a Brobdingnagian base of grouping discover there who are selection to clear for the Times and pretty much nothing else," he said.

The Times said the NYTimes.com home page and section fronts module rest liberated to feeding and the Top News section on smartphone and paper applications module also be liberated of charge.

Web users who find articles finished course from cyberspace search, blogs and social media same Facebook and Twitter module be healthy to feature those articles "even if they hit reached their monthly reading limit," it said.

There module be a five-article a period limit, however, of liberated course to articles to readers who visit NYTimes.com from Google.

Times Co. shares gained 0.34 proportionality on Wall Street to near at $8.89.


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