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An important announcement from the publisher of The New York Times  | |||
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Thank you for reading The New York Times, in all its forms. Sincerely, 
Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Publisher, The New York Times Chairman, The New York Times Company |
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| *Mobile apps are not supported on all devices. Does not include e-reader editions, Premium Crosswords or The New York Times Crosswords apps. Other restrictions apply.
This message was sent to inform you about an important change to our Web site and NYTimes applications. Please note, if you have chosen not to receive marketing messages from The New York Times, that choice applies only to promotional messages. You will continue to receive important notifications that are legally required or could affect your service. To review our Privacy Policy, please go to: http://www.nytimes.com/ © 2011 The New York Times Company / 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018 | ||
《紐約時報》網站開始收費
《紐約時報》公布，本月28日起瀏覽網站全部內容須繳付費用，才可觀看內容，當中包括以智能式手機及平板電腦瀏覽的人士。不過，每月瀏覽量少於20份文章的網民仍可免費觀看內容，也可看重要新聞的內容。瀏覽費用為每4周15美元，而訂閱報紙的用戶則可免費獲得瀏覽密碼。美國的大型傳媒集團希望，透過收費以增加本身的收入，抵消報紙收入旳下降。
The Times Announces Digital Subscription Plan
By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: March 17, 2011
The New York Times introduced a plan on Thursday to begin charging the most frequent users of its Web site $15 for a four-week subscription in a bet that readers will pay for news they are accustomed to getting free.
Related
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Letter: A Letter to Our Readers About Digital Subscriptions (March 18, 2011)
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
Beginning March 28, visitors to NYTimes.com will be able to read 20 articles a month without paying, a limit that company executives said was intended to draw in subscription revenue from the most loyal readers while not driving away the casual visitors who make up the vast majority of the site’s traffic.
Once readers click on their 21st article, they will have the option of buying one of three digital news packages — $15 every four weeks for access to the Web site and a mobile phone app (or $195 for a full year), $20 for Web access and an iPad app ($260 a year) or $35 for an all-access plan ($455 a year). All subscribers who take home delivery of the paper will have free and unlimited access across all Times digital platforms except, for now, e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Subscribers to The International Herald Tribune, which is The Times’s global edition, will also have free digital access.
No American news organization as large as The Times has tried to put its content behind a pay wall after allowing unrestricted access. The move is being closely watched by anxious publishers, which have warily embraced the Web and struggled with how to turn online journalism into a profitable business.
“A few years ago it was almost an article of faith that people would not pay for the content they accessed via the Web,” Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, said in his annual State of The Times remarks, which were delivered to employees Thursday morning.
“This move is an investment in our future,” he said. “It will allow us to develop new sources of revenue to support the continuation of our journalistic mission and digital innovation, while maintaining our large and growing audience to support our robust advertising business. And this system is our latest, and best, demonstration of where we believe the future of valued content — be it news, music, games or more — is going.”
Mr. Sulzberger acknowledged the hurdles The Times must overcome in the minds of many readers, saying he harbored no misconceptions.
“The challenge now is to put a price on our work without walling ourselves off from the global network, to make sure we continue to engage with the widest possible audience,” he said.
Not all visits to NYTimes.com will count toward the 20-article limit. In an effort to reduce losses among the Web site’s more than 30 million monthly readers, The Times will allow access to people who arrive at its Web site through search engines like Google and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There will, however, be a five-article limit a day for people who visit the site from Google.
The 20-article limit begins immediately for readers accessing NYTimes.com from Canada, which allows the company time to work out any software issues before the system begins in the United States and the rest of the world.
For years, newspaper companies have been offering Web access free in hope that the online advertising market will cover their costs. But while online advertising has grown, it has not increased quickly enough to make up for the decline in traditional print advertising. Many publications have been looking at ways to make online consumers pay as they do for print.
“This is practically a do-or-die year,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst who studies the economics of the newspaper business. “The financial pressures on newspapers is steady or increasing. They’re in an industry that is still receding. Newspapers are trying to pay down their debt, but they have fewer resources to do it.”
The debate consuming the newspaper business now centers on the question that The Times hopes to answer: Can you reverse 15 years of consumer behavior and build a business around online subscriptions?
“The nature of how we access news online, in an episodic way throughout the day, tells me people just aren’t going to pay,” said John Paton, chief executive of the Journal Register Company, which publishes papers in the Midwest, upstate New York and Connecticut. “And of course there’s the 15-year history of people not paying. We’ve trained them not to.”
The model The Times is putting in place represents a recognition among some newspaper owners that a successful online business model rests on a relatively small portion of highly engaged readers as opposed to a high volume of page views.
“What matters is, how can you attract a sizable group of core readers who are loyal to your news brand and get most of them — not all of them — to pay for access? And that’s the core of the new business,” Mr. Doctor said. “It’s a major shift in psychology.”
If enough readers balk at paying, The Times risks losing its status as the most-visited newspaper Web site in the country — an important distinction with many advertisers. But revenue losses from any declines in traffic could be offset because advertisers were willing to pay a premium for an audience they know is highly engaged.
“Advertising is about adjacency,” said Andrew Swinand, president of global operations for the Starcom MediaVest Group, a media-buying agency. “I’m paying for an engaged audience, and if that audience is willing to pay, that demonstrates just how engaged they are.”
The Times estimates that 85 percent of its online readers will never reach the 20-article ceiling. The paper has also agreed to a step few publishers have been willing to make, saying that by June 30 it will abide by the terms of Apple’s subscription model. That model gives Apple 30 percent of the price of any subscription sold in its App Store.
The fragile condition of the industry has left newspapers with few choices. Even as other media have recovered, newspapers have experienced little gains from the end of the recession.
Advertising revenue for American newspapers in 2010 — including digital and print — fell 6.3 percent, to $25.8 billion, compared with 2009, which had been the worst year on record as measured by the Newspaper Association of America. In contrast, according to Kantar Media, which tracks marketing activity in major media, overall ad spending in the United States last year increased 6.5 percent from 2009. Television media gained 10.3 percent and magazine media ticked up 2.9 percent.
At The New York Times Media Group, which includes The International Herald Tribune, ad revenue declined 2.1 percent in 2010, to $780.4 million.
Other newspapers, most of them small local papers, have adopted a metered or “freemium” system similar to the one The Times will be using.
Some, like The Commercial Dispatch in Mississippi and The York Daily Record in Pennsylvania, are using an approach created by Journalism Online, which is working with a variety of models that set the number of free articles readers can view from five to 20 each month. Papers have charged monthly subscription fees of around $3.95 to $10.95.
The Dallas Morning News started putting much of its content behind a less porous pay wall last week, an approach similar to The Wall Street Journal’s site, where selected content is free but everything else is available only to subscribers.
The Financial Times, based in Britain, uses an approach similar to what The Times is adopting. It sells online-only subscriptions starting at $19.96 a month. Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com, said the Web site has 210,000 digital subscribers — more than half the 400,000 who subscribe to the print edition.
With passions running high, the question of whether readers will pay never fails to spark spirited discussion online.
The Times’s announcement prompted more than 2,500 comments to its Web site.
A reader in Los Angeles wrote, “The price is too high. I just cannot afford it. I will go to BBC.com or cnn.com. Sorry, NYT, you picked the wealthy again.”
That comment prompted Lori K from Boston to respond, “The ‘wealthy?’ It’s two lunches at McDonalds. For a month of reporting. I’m happy to support the NYT for such a low price.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 17, 2011
An earlier version of this article misstated the price of a subscription as $15 a month. That is the price for four weeks of full access to the Web site and a mobile phone app.
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| Dear NYTimes.com Reader,
You’re already a valued reader of the world’s finest news site. And no wonder: The Times is the No. 1 blogged news site in the world. It’s the common bond between leaders of politics and business. It sets the agenda for the day’s e-mails, tweets and commentary. And now you can join the influential audience who already benefit from unlimited access to NYTimes.com with this incredible introductory offer. BECOME A DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER FOR 99 CENTS FOR YOUR FIRST 8 WEEKS. You’re invited to enjoy unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps for as low as 13¢ a week for your first 8 weeks.* Take advantage of this limited time offer and we think you’ll agree — with the finest reporters in their field keeping you informed around the clock and around the world on your computer, smartphone and tablet — The Times is an indispensable part of your connection to global intelligence. |
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