NY Times: Pay wall under (re)consideration?
Less than two years after pulling down the pay wall, NY Times executive editor Bill Keller has hinted that a consumer-pays model may reappear on the paper’s website, says a report on The Huffington Post.
Less than two years after pulling down the pay wall, NY Times executive editor Bill Keller has hinted that a consumer-pays model may reappear on the paper’s website, says a report on The Huffington Post. Keller was responding to reader questions in a weekly online Q&A, where he said that “a lively, deadly serious discussion continues with The Times about ways to get consumers to pay for what we make.” (The Times currently charges for access to crossword puzzles online and a few other features.)
Models under consideration include a full-access subscription fee, micro-payments on a page-click basis and, as The Times does with Amazon.com’s Kindle, selling content for distribution on reading devices. Other publishers continue to explore the for-fee model, says The Huff Post report: The Christian Science Monitor is developing a for-fee daily electronic newsletter, while U.S. News and World Report is reviving a weekly publication as a digital download for $24.95 a year. News Corp.’s The Wall Street Journal is one of the few that has successfully charged for online subscriptions, but it lags the Times’ Web site in total audience.
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