January 18, 2010, 8:42 AM — It's certainly not news that traditional media is in trouble thanks to the internet. Print advertising dollars continue to vanish while online advertising doesn't seem up to the task of taking up the slack. The struggle going on in many media business offices is whether or not charging for an online subscription to a publication is a feasible way to try to make up the difference. Relatively few publications have pulled this off successfully, and the Wall Street Journal is the only truly mainstream publication that has had success with this model.
Now the New York Times is thinking of giving online subscriptions another go, if an article at New York Magazine is to be believed. Assuming NY Mag has its fact straight, the NY Times is going for what they're calling a metered system; you can read x articles per day for free, but at some point you'll get a registration wall asking you to pay. There's also some indication that the Times will launch this new system along with the fabled Apple iTablet, presumably in the hopes that new iTablet readers will have their purse strings loosened sufficiently by Apple that they'll be willing to shell out some cash for content.
This isn't the first time the NY Times has tried a paid subscription service. The last time they had things set up so certain articles were behind a pay wall and others that weren't. It was a confusing system that, apparently, didn't work for them. It is also worth mentioning that you can pay to read the Times online right now if you want to, using the Times Reader. The cost is $14.95/month. It'd be interesting to learn how many takers they've have for that deal.
CNET reports on a recent Harris Poll that said 77% of people asked wouldn't pay to read a newspaper online. While I sympathize with the plight of publications I just don't see how the Times is going to make this work. The only way to get people to pay for online content is to make paying for it ubiquitous. Until all (or most) news sites charge, people will just go to another (free) site when they hit your pay wall.
At least that's what I think. What about you? Is the Harris Poll correct? Would you pay to read an online paper? What about a paper delivered to a large format e-reader of some kind? Like, say, a 10" iTablet? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
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