Bill Keller, the executive editor at the New York Times, has announced that starting next year they will begin charging for “frequent” access to their website.
Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site.
But executives of The New York Times Company said they could not yet answer fundamental questions about the plan, like how much it would cost or what the limit would be on free reading. They stressed that the amount of free access could change with time, in response to economic conditions and reader demand.
“Subscribers to the newspaperâ??s print edition will receive full access to the site.”
uh, ya think? Finally a morsel of brilliant strategery, albeit in the final moments of battle.
@ Steve
you can’t blame them for misunderestimating their opponents.
Underestimating who exactly, I.D.? The online version of their newspaper is part of their own enterprise.
More and more people continue to receive their information online, as presumably less are getting it from the newspaper. If I were King for a day, I would make the online information the version that requires a fee, while making newspapers free to those with online accounts. Crazy!
“We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us.”
-Walt Kelly