NYTimes to End Charges on Web Site

[CatWoman]

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight Tuesday night, reflecting a growing view in the industry that subscription fees cannot outweigh the potential ad revenue from increased traffic on a free site.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to its columnists’ work and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times, and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.

The newspaper said the TimesSelect project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[XemaSab]

1. Free at last, free at last....

:woohoo:


























































:hide:

[Cha]

2. That's mighty bottom-linish

of them.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Alll-Riiight!

I've been holding off renewing my sub because I heard this was going to happen.

Hooray for the US's greatest newspaper!!! (I know, I know, I'm one of only two Liberals in this country that love The Times.)

[Patsy Stone]

4. Great news!

:woohoo:

But what about the Crossword? Will they still charge for that? I wonder.

[stillcool]

5. Is Judith Miller back?

"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover – Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work – and life."

[ikojo]

6. Yippeeeeeee!!!!!!

I can read Krugman and Herbert again!!!!!!!

I am SO happy!!!!

I missed Paul and Bob!

[BrklynLiberal]

7. 'bout damn time.

x(

[Catchawave]

8. Great news !

They also probably figured out, one person subscribes and sends the full articles out to thousands of their closest friends :toast: I'm on several lists for the "pay" newsies' articles.

[Canuckistanian]

9. I can read Krugman again in his natural habitat? Yay!

Thank you, NYT, for your inevitable sanity.

[annabanana]

10. HA!. . . I knew that couldn't last.

We have too many options.