The New York Times today outlined it’s plans to charge readers for access to it’s articles online. According to the paper the Times will opt for a metered system allowing users to read a set amount of content for free before they are asked to subscribe.
This does not sound like a good idea to me.
The New York Times, as with other American newspapers, is in a bad state- advertising revenue is falling and sales have virtually collapsed. Kathlyn Clore has a great piece about this.
The New York Times should be paid for the quality product they produce but charging for access online, without having a niche market, is not the way to go. Brand loyalty simply doesn’t exist online, show the average user a payment screen when all they want in real-time information and they will go elsewhere- be it to another newspaper, to Twitter or to Joe Soap’s media blog.
Newswalls have their place, the Financial Times has been operating a metered system rather successfully for several years but unlike the New York Times the FT has a niche market- a niche market that can afford to pay.
And unlike the FT the New York Times is the newspaper of record- the authoritative first draft of history read by 20 million users a year. However online users are not the same as real-world readers; in the online environment the New York Times is just another source of content.
Without understanding the difference between online and offline readers the newspaper industry, like the music industry, is going to struggle to make make a profit online.
When Michael Jackson died on the 25th of June, 2009 users didn’t flock to their online newspaper of choice, they flocked to Google.
Imagine this scenario, a major news event such as the Haiti earthquake breaks. Online users head to the New York Times website- there they follow the story as it unfolds, reading as many of the articles as they can…until presented with a screen asking for their credit card details.
My fear is that if the New York Times locks itself behind any kind of pay wall an authoritative voice will be lost. Why would a user head to the NY Times website again after being asked to pay the last time they were there.
I am not saying I have a solution to the newspaper industry’s revenue problems (although I would recommend they wait for hyperlocal location-based advertising to take off) but, imho, the situation is too complex and there is too much competition from both professional and non-professional sources for paywalls to work.