New York Times Ends Its Paid Subscription Service

Mike writes "The New York Times has announced that it will end its paid Internet service in favor of making most of its Web site available for free. The hope is that this move will attract more readers and higher advertising revenue. 'The longer-term problem for publishers like the Times is that they must find ways to present content online rather than just transferring stories and pictures from the newspaper. Most U.S. news Web sites offer their contents for free, supporting themselves by selling advertising. One exception is The Wall Street Journal which runs a subscription-based Web site. TimesSelect generated about $10 million in revenue a year. Schiller declined to project how much higher the online growth rate would be without charging visitors.'"

Comments

Link to the NYTimes article.

[richie2000]

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. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Re:Hope they open the archives

[MissP]

"If they opened up the archives, their website would instantly become *A LOT* more useful."

Sigh. But not to this crowd, who can't be bothered with reading beyond the headlines. From the FA:

Starting on Wednesday, access to the archives will be available for free back to 1987, and as well as stories before 1923, which are in the public domain, Schiller said.

Re:Great!

[krelian]

According to TFA the archives from 1987-Present and 1851-1922 (public domain) are going to be free.