The New York Times already announced that it would be implementing a paywall for at least some of its content earlier this year, but now it has a concrete date. The publication is actually reversing course in this area; it previously charged for access to archived and editorial content on its site, a practice that didn’t stop until August 2007.
Joe Strupp from Media Matters for America reached out to Keller about the plans for The New York Times website and how it will impact customers.
“Those who mainly come to the website via search engines or links from blogs, and those who only come sporadically — in short, the bulk of our traffic — may never be asked to pay at all. People who have print subscriptions will get full website access without charge. So we do not anticipate a major impact on overall traffic, which is important to maintain advertising.”
The plan, it seems, will not be dissimilar to what Variety is doing — offering non-subscribers access to a certain number of articles for free each week or each month.
The change in policy, according to Keller, is just a reality of the business at this point in time. Keller tells Media Matters: “It costs money to do the kind of deeply reported journalism our readers expect, and it’s well worth paying for. We assume there will be some impact on readership, aka traffic, but not as much as with a conventional pay model.”
This metered approach is certainly likely to perform better than, say, the all-or-nothing approach (like what Newsday implemented, or rather, tried to implement), but its success may ultimately depend on how much content is protected and what additional incentives The New York Times can offer subscribers.
Are you willing to pay to access some content from national newspaper websites like The New York Times? Let us know!
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