Monday, May 17, 2010

A New Way of Thinking..Paying for News?

We all know that companies have less money these days to allocate to advertising. In an economic downturn Advertising should not be one of the areas where money is cut but the reality is that most likely it is. News publications who generally rely on advertising dollars now have to turn to other avenues to keep afloat. In this case the New York Times, a world known publication, has decided to allow users to only access their publications a limited amount of times before requiring them to purchase a subscription.


According to www.nymag.com the New York Times "is growing into an English language global newspaper of record." Going to a subscription system may generate additional revenue but may limit their circulation from other nations. For instance, individuals in developing countries who visit the site would not be able to afford a subscription therefore making them refer to other sites. Unlike most publications the NY Times has over 20 million readers allowing them to capitalize on web advertising. For example, their homepage has sold out on numerous occasions in the last year.

Unless the top publications of the world come together and decide that they will uniformly charge users for information, they will continue to use free sources. Users are accustom to this practice and now more than ever are savvy with search engines which can assist them in finding the information they need.

I am aware that the NY Times is a "for profit" enterprise but as journalist, do they not have due diligence to provide the citizens of the world with quality news? As a leading English publication they must provide quality information to the public. This allows our global citizens to stay up to date with global events and issues. Knowing that this publication does not believe in access of quality information to all, will ultimately limit readers from accessing their site, and fewer readers means less revenue.

I do not think that the NY Times will revert back to complete free access but they may uplift some of the restrictions that they have implemented. In the end, the users will decide whether they will stand for this and according to my research users do not seem to be willing to pay for news, when quality free information is still available.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with krystel to an extent. I just believe if I can get a substitute of a product or service without incurring any extra cost I would go for such a product. This also applies to newspaper publications. The readers have several options to choose from so also do companies that want to advertise. So the saying that NYT may still generate revenue is less likely to happen.

    Also considering the fact that they have failed in the past while trying to get readers to subscribe to their online services. What makes this situation different from past trial.

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