After two years of marginalizing its top writers, the New York Times is ending TimeSelect, its pay for access service. Many of us projected that it would ultimately fail due to the amount of free content available on the Web.

But what is amusing to me is that the NYT claims it was a success!

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaperÂ’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.

Yeah -- we simply weren't ging to pay for acces. It is why I haven't bothered commenting on Rich, Brooks, Krugman or Dowd for the last couple of years -- I don't consider them worth paying for, and I can't imagine finding them worth paying for.

The paper recognized that folks like me dominate the internet, because it found it necessary to end TimeSelect so that it could move to a more future-oriented business model in which it maximizes advertising revenue -- an important goal, given the fall in its print-subscriber base.

Posted by: Greg at 10:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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