E&P: NY TimesSelect Draws About 156,000 Web-Only Subs in First 4 Months

[DeepModem Mom]

TimesSelect Draws About 156,000 Web-Only Subs in First 4 Months
By Joe Strupp
Published: January 24, 2006

NEW YORK About 156,000 people have signed up and paid a special online fee to read The New York Times' columnists since the paper launched its TimesSelect service four months ago, the paper reported Tuesday. Those readers are among a total of 390,000 who have signed up for the Web feature, which includes print subscribers who have free access to the online columns, but must register.

"We've always said that if we could get a couple of hundred thousand in the first year, that would be good," said Len Apcar, editor in chief of NYTimes.com, the paper's Web site, which launched the service Sept. 19. "That's very good for January."

Online-only subscribers pay $7.95 per month and $49.95 per year. When the paper previously released subscriber figures, in October and December, it indicated about half of those signing up were paying only for the Web. The latest data shows about 40% are web-only subscribers.

The service requires a fee for Web access to all news, sports, business and Op-Ed columnists. It also provides extra services such as online journals by some columnists, video presentations, and access to the paper's online archives....

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Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty....said there was no change to one controversial element of TimesSelect, which requires those wishing to e-mail the Op-Ed columnists to sign-up for the service. The limitation had drawn complaints from editors at several newspapers nationwide who run the columns and were recently told by the Times not to publish their e-mail addresses.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001883849