New York Times' Print and Digital Units Reportedly Disagreeing Over iPad Content Pricing

[Max_Walker]

Subscription model

This is easy to answer,

The flat rate $10 per month gets you instantaneous 'flat' edition. Looks the same - but no interactivity or video.

Premium gets you embedded video and clickable articles for more depth coverage plus the ability to save articles in some sort of filed binder.

Hence similar content with those willing to pay more getting the 'unlocked' version. If the content is good enough people will pay to unlock. Or you make articles unlockable for micro payments that add up over time to more than the premium subscription that way the decision is graduated not 10 or 30 bucks

 

[jerome65]

NYC is heart of world greed. Publishers see iPad as source of bail-out $$.

Publishers are in business to make money, not charities. If they can't make money then they won't stay in business. Also, publishers have not been raking in the profits recently. As I recall a number of big newspapers have been operating at or below the break even point over the past 5 years, some even close to bankruptcy if it were not for the cash infusion from their parent companies. If they cannot find a business model where they can turn a profit for their share holders they will go out of business.

 

[speedriff]

Yessir

News will not be free forever? Want to make a bet on that? While I disagree with most of what you said, your assertion that that same folks who download music illegally will continue to believe that news should be free, is a bit offensive and follows faulty logic.

While you claim that someone has to pay for quality reporters and analysts, take a look at your local or mid-range paper... no really take a look. The quality of the content has been degraded, and a large portion of it is not generated, but aggregated from other sources (and increasingly more second & third tier services). The quality of the content has suffered, and very little quality content is generated anymore (not when compared to the days when it was an industry, and the product manufactured was "content").
Real "journalism" with the exception of the oft maligned bloggers (working out of their mom's basements) is largely dead.

The NYT's proposed pay model will only gather a few customers, and fail to produce an adequate profit. There is ample past history with other efforts to bear this out, but time will tell in this instance. The price needs to be low enough that folks will willingly pay it without thinking. It needs to be half that of what most folks would willingly pay for it (much like Jobs pressured ATT to come up with an unlimited data plan at half the cost, or how he priced the tablet at half of the expected cost).

You are EXACTLY right on point. Not only do todays papers source their news from wherever they can, a lot of it is sloppy and the facts are skewed if reported at all. Sensationalism at it's finest...er...or is that worst? They deserve to die if what they are putting out is the best they can do.

 

[flybynite]

They deserve to die if what they are putting out is the best they can do.

I would not want to be held to your standards.

 

[gociogo]

Its all about Pricing

I have not purchased from Itunes in years since Amazon has their special pricing daily on a new album for aprox 3.99.

Thats what music should cost with a digital distribution model.

Same for magazines. If I can get the local paper for $0.25 then the digital version should cost $0.15. at that price people would purchase it with out considering it.

The App store is a success becuase the price point is not an issue to fret about and if the game was disapointment so it was only a DOLLAR.

All these execs are so Greedy.

Price yourself out of the market and then get a Real Job Smucks!

 

[powers74]

right

Sorry NY, you are not the center of the world.

They're more like the Left of the world.

 

[MacGuffin]

The Guardian is superior to the predictable Times in every way.

And what is the cost of the Guardian on the iPhone?

A mere $3 or $4 one-time fee.

Admittedly they haven't begun serving up Steve Bell yet on the app, a glaring omission.

$30 for American propaganda and cutesy cultural writing? Ha ha! NYTimes: prepare for your Murdoch buy-out, darlings.

 

[mlblacy]

Er, excuse me...

When nobody can get paid to produce news anymore, who do you think is going to do it? Crazies with an axe to grind, that's who.

Have fun in your dystopia where your "free news" consists of your neighbor raving about the CIA on a blog, and mouthpieces on each political front funded by benefactors who like throwing money away.

Isn't that sorta like what we have now?

 

[farmboy]

I can get my news from any number of sources and sites online:

CNN.com...
Forbes.com

Why would I or anyone else for that matter pay $30, $20, or $10 for day old news and columns/articles that are no better than any of the free sites I just listed? NYT can shove it, $10 should be the max they are going to price it at. What year do they think we are living in? This is not 1984 when the newspaper was important and a big source for news.

You (and many others) are missing the point: without the revenue from paper editions, there is NO electronic edition. The ad revenues and subscriptions aren't there yet on the electronic versions. When the news agencies/papers move away from paper, and they will quickly, they will have to charge for content; the price will vary, but they will charge. Get used to it.

Free news collection sites (like Google News) will not be allowed to present the content without paying the source a fee. No more snatch-n-post, no more royalty/fee-free content, even when it clicks through to the source. So if you think you will be able to get the news (real news and analysis, not just headlines and two sentences of content that pass for news on your average TV station or web site) for free, you'll be wrong.

I'm divided on whether this is a good thing or not. But it's gonna happen.

 

[jerome65]

Same for magazines. If I can get the local paper for $0.25 then the digital version should cost $0.15. at that price people would purchase it with out considering it.

The App store is a success becuase the price point is not an issue to fret about and if the game was disapointment so it was only a DOLLAR.

All these execs are so Greedy.

Price yourself out of the market and then get a Real Job Smucks!

I don't know where you live but my local paper costs 75 cents a day. Even then at $20 monthly subscription rate that is a 50% savings, your example above for your local newspaper at 15 cents less than a 50% savings of the 25 cent daily rate. So by your math $20/month, or 66 cents a day is a reasonable price to pay.

Just for reference I believe the daily price of the NYT at the newsstand is $2 for the daily and $5 for Sundays (national edition is $6) for a total of $17/week or $68/month (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/05/new-york-times-price-hike_n_197007.html). Intro subscription rates are at $7.40/week at 50% off the regular subscription rate ($14.80) (on their website). That is $29.60 intro rate or $59.20 regular rate (this may be higher than in NY because I checked the rate based off of home deliver to Ohio). So based off this at $30/month for me it would be about a 50% savings over home delivery of the NYT, $10/month is about 16% of the print subscription price which might work for an introductory pricing but I doubt that it would be sustainable even with the lower cost of production and delivery.

 

[La Porta]

Here in the UK a lot of newspapers are moving toward a free model. They hand them out for free on the street! The ones that aren't free are getting cheaper and cheaper. If they can do this with a 'real' newspaper with all the costs involved with printing and distribution, it shows how much the newspapers used to make.

Sounds wonderful...now explain to me how anyone involved in that process is paid to do this? It won't survive.

 

[farmboy]

You are EXACTLY right on point. Not only do todays papers source their news from wherever they can, a lot of it is sloppy and the facts are skewed if reported at all. Sensationalism at it's finest...er...or is that worst? They deserve to die if what they are putting out is the best they can do.

It's not perfect, and it's been worse as the economy bottomed out, but I fear the alternative--nothing but blogger-mentality opinion presented as "news" with no editorial functions, no writing skills, no depth, no detail, no research, no incentive or obligation to present differing sides of an issue, no reason to not just make things up, no reason to care. Kind of like Fox News (acknowledge gratuitous slap; don't care. See how it starts?).

 

[qtx43]

I would not want to be held to your standards.

I would, and there's probably a word for the fallacy you just engaged in, but I don't know the word. A company is not a real person, and equating a company's death with your own is silly, at best.

 

[Jaro65]

Did i read that right 20-30 dollars a month!!!!!

For news i could get for free.

Thats the cost of the 3g service to use the ipad in the first place then you want to me to pay 20-30 a month just for the times!!!

good luck with that!!!

Yes, you did read it right. These people still live in 20th century and don't realize that you can read most of this content for free on the Internet. At $10/month I may think about it. At $20-$30 per month, I'm not even wasting any of my time. Most likely though, I'll just fire-up a browser and let the advertisers pay for what I'm about to read. There is certainly a value that one puts on quality journalism, but there are also limits to how far most of us will go in terms of paying for it (just as it is with everything else).

 

[TallManNY]

Just look at how well the Wall Street Journal is doing! Staying right down the center of political reporting and has a robust and growing web/mobile strategy.

Wow, did you read the WSJ during the Presidential election. Basically the Op-Ed section had at least one article attacking Obama every day and they kept that up for about four months leading up to the election. Really it was every single day. Now they attack him and the democrats only every other day, so I guess they seem much more balanced. The WSJ and its owner Murdoch is very conservative. I don't mind since it provides a nice balance to the NYTimes. I read both of them most days on my Kindle.

I hope the NYTimes and the other news sources realize they actually need to charge for their content before they go out of business. $30 per month seems too high, but $5 per month seems too low. It is especially too low if the iPad version is like the Kindle version and is ad free. The newspapers can't sell their content cheap and not package it with ads.

 

[Auchron]

Society needs a wake-up call

I have read thru 3 pages and I couldn't stand any more.

I mean honestly people, most of you need a wake up call.

You go to any news stand and buy your paper for $1.50 a day and the Sunday version is $4. That is $52 dollars a month.

If you get a subscription you cut that in half to $26 dollars a month. So a online subscription of $20 is not far off.

Now this isn't news that is associated to the internet. Some ipads won't have 3g and will only have wifi. This means while you are moving on the bus, subway, commute vehicle you probably won't be able to hold any wifi to surf google etc.

This app that you pay for a subscription will allow you to read up to date news without being "constantly" connected to the internet. Hmmm, does every where have hot spots and do you have access to these hot spots?

This is for digital convenience and an interactive experience. People pay for paper print at higher prices, not only are you going to get the same content but you are going to get video etc. Paper costs include video editing? Digital publishing? Creating an interactive experience? Where does these extra costs come in to play.

Everyone wants everything for free. But guess what, nothing is. For people who like the NYT (and I would assume there are quite a few) there is definitely good value in $20 a month.

If you can't find the value, then please do us all a favor and just post

"No value for me at $20" and not "That is ridiculous they are trying to gouge our pockets. There is no extra costs... blah blah blah". Try educating yourself first.

 

[leontief]

It's not perfect, and it's been worse as the economy bottomed out, but I fear the alternative--nothing but blogger-mentality opinion presented as "news" with no editorial functions, no writing skills, no depth, no detail, no research, no incentive or obligation to present differing sides of an issue, no reason to not just make things up, no reason to care. ....

Exactly. As one of those people who do currently shell out over $600 per year for the daily NYT I obviously value the traditional role of the newspaper as filter and in-depth researcher.

Not to say that I do not read other papers WSJ, Guardian etc. online, or revert to google news to catch quick updates. But really those quick updates fail to provide enough information or depth to understand the issues. I want to read it, think about it(if its worth it) and not have to look at it again until tomorrow. There is an economy of time in filtered content sources that seems to be forgotten. Quit checking on stuff and start doing and thinking about stuff.


Yes there will "free" news but what kind of free news, from where and in what depth. You really think people are going to go off to a war zone or risk being caught-up in internal unrest and killings for a bit payment. That takes foreign bureaus and staff, sure the NYT uses freelancers as well , but they can afford to pay them and have support in place to help them.

We are re-entering a period of "Yellow Journalism" I fear. Perhaps much like before we will emerge with new content providers that are deemed trustworthy, but I somehow really doubt modern societies willingness to shut-up sit down and listen for a change, rather than just shout in a sea of babel.

 

[jerome65]

Yes, you did read it right. These people still live in 20th century and don't realize that you can read most of this content for free on the Internet. At $10/month I may think about it. At $20-$30 per month, I'm not even wasting any of my time. Most likely though, I'll just fire-up a browser and let the advertisers pay for what I'm about to read.

If the sources of the "Free" news on the internet go out of business then there won't be "Free" news on the internet. Most of the "Free" news on the internet is generated for other media, be it print or television and is not fully supported by the ad revenue from the web site. You take away the print revenue from the newspapers that publish the news "Free" on their web sites and they will not be able to make money putting it up on the web even with the ad revenue that they generate from it so it will go away.

Like it or not we live in a capitalist society and someone researches and writes that news that has to pay housing and buy food, I doubt that you would do your job for "Free" or even take a 50% pay cut so that your companies customers could cut the price of their product to what people who have no idea what the actual cost of making it "Think" it should sell for.

 

[talkingnewmedia]

I was glad to see the NYT Media Decoder blog posting this little story about Flash. There seems to be this idea that Flash is completely banned from the iPad. Not true (if this story is correct, and I believe it is). It is just banned as part of Safari.

But both the iPhone and the iPad are app oriented products, so as long as the programmer (publisher) uses something like Adobe Air they will be able to keep Flash isolated, so to speak.

This is where the lack of multitasking has a small advantage: a publisher (like the NYT -- see, this isn't off topic) could choose to use Air as their platform so long as the app can not run in the background. (Apple allows only a very limited number of apps to run in the background, right?, and some of these are simply utilizing Safari to do so. Some of my radio programs to that to get around the multitasking issue.)

 

[gociogo]

If the sources of the "Free" news on the internet go out of business then there won't be "Free" news on the internet. Most of the "Free" news on the internet is generated for other media, be it print or television and is not fully supported by the ad revenue from the web site. You take away the print revenue from the newspapers that publish the news "Free" on their web sites and they will not be able to make money putting it up on the web even with the ad revenue that they generate from it so it will go away.

Like it or not we live in a capitalist society and someone researches and writes that news that has to pay housing and buy food, I doubt that you would do your job for "Free" or even take a 50% pay cut so that your companies customers could cut the price of their product to what people who have no idea what the actual cost of making it "Think" it should sell for.

There is a difference between cutting Cost and Cutting Profit.
An employee is a cost he is part of what it takes to produce a product. Profit is the Cream on Top after every employee and vender has been paid their dues.

MANY companies dont wish to cut profits but do cut costs.

At the end the consumer will win by either pruchasing a product or not. The catch is the iPad would be successfull to a larger degree if content was not priced to a point where you could only afford one subscription!

 

[brentsg]

I have read thru 3 pages and I couldn't stand any more.

I mean honestly people, most of you need a wake up call.

You go to any news stand and buy your paper for $1.50 a day and the Sunday version is $4. That is $52 dollars a month.

If you get a subscription you cut that in half to $26 dollars a month. So a online subscription of $20 is not far off.

Holy crap, you serious? Where I live a subscription to the newspaper is ~$7.75 a month. On the news stand it's $1 per day and $1.50 for Sunday.

No way would I pay $20 a month for an e-paper, and no way would I pay $26 a month for a paper copy either.

 

[flyguy206]

they need to make a one time fee they will make more money that way. If the said $30 for 3months 6 months $60, 9 months $ 90. 12 months $120 people would pay that.

 

[Tom Creo]

I doubt many of you have read The Times so how can you judge if it's worth the subscription fee? many New Yorkers who need their DAILY NYT fix would love to pay the proposed price.

 

[Auchron]

Holy crap, you serious? Where I live a subscription to the newspaper is ~$7.75 a month. On the news stand it's $1 per day and $1.50 for Sunday.

No way would I pay $20 a month for an e-paper, and no way would I pay $26 a month for a paper copy either.

That newspaper is it the New York Times? Or a local newspaper? We are talking about the New York Times not other newspapers.

 

[brentsg]

That newspaper is it the New York Times? Or a local newspaper? We are talking about the New York Times not other newspapers.

Ah ok, this is local. This "You go to any news stand and buy your paper" sounded to me like just any paper.

I have no idea what the NYT costs at a stand because I wouldn't spend a nickle on it, personally.