'The New York Times' Announces Digital Access With In App Subscriptions

[TallManNY]

Another reason that the web has been free is that the papers were told that "eyeballs" and ads was the way to go. Now it has been nearly a decade and it turns out that companies won't pay enough for online ads to support the papers. The whole free website thing was a failure. So the papers are going to go back to charging for their content. Hopefully this will allow the NY Times to stay in business.

 

[thompson11]

good thing it's free on the internet...so silly

so you pay $15 a month to read the same news in an app that you can get by opening up safari and going to the web site..

You do realize they're putting NYTimes.com behind a paywall when these subscriptions go live, so you won't be able to get it for free.

 

[hitekalex]

Come on now, even the most fervent NYTimes basher has to see the difference between The Daily and the NYTimes. The Daily is a glorified gossip rag with a bit of right leaning opinion pieces from right wing think tank members. They had more content about the Super Bowl than Egypt and the information about Egypt was days old. There is also the issue with The Daily removing content as it is replaced with the new content so you have to read it every day or you just payed for content you will never read because you can't (unless they fixed this).

No doubt there is a quality difference between NYT and The Daily content.. Nonetheless, The Daily has set the standard for "iPad newspaper" pricing model, which other publish must take into consideration if they want to compete. The Daily and NYT for iPad are competing in the same market. NYT cannot price their content x35 times higher than the competition and expect to be successful.

 

[vrDrew]

I'll bid a sad adieu to the New York Times iPad app.

Even if I made a heck of a lot more money than I do now - I'd still have a hard time rationalizing more than $400 a year for a digital newspaper.

I think the Times is going to see their digital readership figures plunge off a cliff. I think the "over/under" on the readership dropoff of the iPad App is probably around 98%.

Anyone doubt that?

 

[Eduardo1971]

The Times can bite me. Given their track record in making stuff up, this should be listed as Fiction and not news...

Whatever. Go back to watching your Fox 'news' channel. Everyone knows that whatever they report must be true, right?

 

[hitekalex]

You do realize they're putting NYTimes.com behind a paywall when these subscriptions go live, so you won't be able to get it for free.

Well, you would get 20 articles a month free.. beyond that, you'd have to pay. I am sure there will be ways around their paywall though, at least on the Web.

 

[TallManNY]

I think the Times is going to see their digital readership figures plunge off a cliff. I think the "over/under" on the readership dropoff of the iPad App is probably around 98%.

Anyone doubt that?

Yes I doubt that. It will probably drop, but nowhere near 98%. And in fact, it might go up because there will probably be three times the number of iPads in use by the end of 2011 as there were at the end of 2010. Also, I'm going to guess that the iPad app gets a little better and runs significantly better on iPad 2, making it a better product than it is now.

People will pay for the NYTimes in digital form, just like they are currently paying for the WSJ in digital form.

 

[jbg232]

I posted this here but will repeat the information:

Like most people I read the NY Times s on my ipad (and sometimes iphone) and on my home computer. The prices they are charging may seem high but there is a much better unadvertised deal below that you can get if you call the NY Times directly at 800-698-4637 (you have to navigate to the option to renew/cancel/suspend your account and then wait for the system to ask for your account number and then hold on the line until it connects you to an operator).

The website does not offer this, but an unadvertised subscription option is the Sunday only paper (you can choose to have half of it delivered on Saturday which is what I do and is quite nice). For the first 12 weeks it is $2.50/issue ($10/month) and then after that it is $5/issue or $20/month. Included for ALL home delivery subscribers (including this subscription model - I confirmed), you get full digital access to the paper online, on the iphone and most importantly for me, the ipad as well. Basically, the best of all worlds. Unless you are only reading the ny times on an iphone only I really do not see how this is not the way to go as you can save a massive amount of money and get the sunday edition delivered as well.

Thought I would share.

 

[leontief]

Everyone says "well, I'll just go somewhere else," but you know all the major newspapers will go this route in time. You can still go to other sites for "free" news, but that's just the same thing as the free periodicals you find in bins on the street...you don't see them killing the subscription papers. There is room for both.

Exactly, the I will just go somewhere else people need to realize there are very few actual news rooms left that report stories outside of the local stuff. Most of what you read (in the US)about the nation or international is produced by no more than 3 to 4 organizations (NYT, Chi Trib/LA Times, WSJ , and AP/Reuters) although in the last instance they are quite limited themselves relying heavily on other news staff. As paywalls go up do you think they will freely give out those stories, or not DRM their work? I don't think so, nor should they. But, "information want's to be free", not when that information potentially requires people to die for it, and unfortunately real reporting sometimes does.

 

[infidel69]

The NYT is charging so much because they know people will pay it. Overpriced content we used to get for free is the future.

 

[gri]

$455 per year? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just subscribe to the newsprint version?

How to you get to that number? $20 per months is 240 in my book if you use the iPad...

Was only a matter of time that that happened. And in these times probably a smart move. Do I like it though? Of course not, and it is expensive. I don't see the difference between the devices. But I can see its necessity.

 

[Blizzardman]

NYT is still around?

 

[marksman]

$5 a month would have been reasonable. I hope NYtimes reporters have their resumes up to date...

If they charged $5 a month they all would likely be out of jobs pretty quickly.

The first 12 weeks of a full print subscription with home delivery are 50% off and cost $70.20. The rest of the year is $11.70 for each week.

So:

12 weeks = $70.20
40 weeks = $468.00
total = $538.20

So no, it's not cheaper. And the next year is at full price so the cost is $608.40.

Yeah people don't understand this is core pricing, and the pricing you list above for the paper edition is offset significantly by advertising much more so than the digital versions.

I'm just not seeing the benefit. I can get quality news elsewhere, faster and cheaper. It also seems I would be paying extra just for redundant technologies. I assume there is a benefit if I actually wanted to read about local NYC news. If there is something big it is being covered by others or put out through AP. Yes NYT is the most awarded (Pulitzer Prize) but quite honestly not recently for anything already being covered by the web or special interest groups. So, what is the benefit?

Then don't read it. This is for people who want to read the New York Times. If you think all this news is going to continue to be "free", you are sadly mistaken. This is just the first step. I don't know of any charity news organizations. Maybe NPR can be your news source. All the other stuff you cite, is going to have to eventually change their models.

They just don't get it. These are still old newspaper guys trying to apply the same subscription model to electronic versions. It doesn't work. It never will.

The answer to making revenue isn't 'well just charge a subscription like we do for the newspaper.' It's about making your content unique and usable, then getting advertisers to pay for those eyeballs.

Stupid is as stupid does.

As someone else said, they have already tried it, it doesn't work. We are a culture are highly ad resistance especially in new media. Advertising is not going to carry the way due to an over-saturated ad culture and the fact that too many people actively try to remove/avoid ads in content. As others noted, they have tried the ad route digitally and it does not work.

People want that to be the road ahead but these are the same people who run adblockers on their web browser. So they just don't get it. I have a dvr and fast forward through commercials. I know long-term the model can't sustain everyone avoiding commercials so at some point I will have to pay directly, or change my behavior. Seems many of you don't realize this when it comes to digital content.

The thing is, the ad supported model has not worked. Paper subscriptions have been subsidizing the website for years, but at this point those print subscriptions have declined to the point where the free website can no longer be supported.

the NYT tried the ad supported model and it didn't work. What would you do?

Right on. Newspapers have been trying to make it work online as long as most anyone. None of them have done a good job of it, but in terms of news organizations trying to make it work, they have done the best.

Perhaps the only news we will have online will be related to tv news networks because they have the money to blow on a free news website. There goes a lot of depth to news writing coverage though. The traditional newspapers can no longer prop up the websites like they have been... The only ones who can still do it going forward are going to be the likes of FoxNews and CNN and that is only for a while.

I will not pay for this...

Google Reader, Yahoo News, CNN, and my favorite app, pulse for iPhone.

Good luck, NYTimes, I just cancelled my subscription.

Good luck to you.

Comparing CNN website's to the New York Times is a little bit silly. But I guess there is no accounting for actual quality or journalism , just as long as you get your newsbytes. Hey, I read USA TOday a lot of the time.. so I get ya.. but the New York Times was not in your wheel house to begin with it seems.

So let me see, subscribe to the paper addition of NYTimes in NYC and it is $5.85 a week or $305 a year. That gets me full access to website, ipad and iphone. But if subscribe to full digital access, it is $35 per four weeks or $455 a year. Boy that makes a lot of sense.
Can I subscribe to the paper and tell them just not to deliver the paper?

The paper addition is HEAVILY subsidized by advertising. Massively so actually, so it makes perfect sense as the advertising contribution for the digital edition is only a tiny fraction of what it is for the paper edition.

Selling it cheaper for the paper edition makes sense because advertisers in newspapers pay for circulation, so the more people they get the paper in the hands of, the more ad revenue they make. So having a combination package that is cheaper is much better for them as it generates significantly more revenue. If that is a much better deal then just do that... It is not like anyone is forcing you to choose the most expensive option.

 

[maelstromr]

I applaud the NYT for trying to work out a solution to the death of print media.

I then dock them half that applause for coming up with a screwy pricing system.

We all need to start paying for information we once got for free or ALL of the quality, thoughtful, complete and responsible news outlets will disappear. You have to PAY for talent and product development, and free riding internet deals don't help that. If you can no longer pay the people who do good work, everything available will be of the (terrible) quality of blogs, huffpo, etc.

Napster died and we kept buying and downloading music, and part of that was the development of a robust and incredibly useful mechanism to get that music (itunes store.)

Good luck to the NYT and here's hoping they fix pricing soon.

We all should start seriously thinking about what is worth paying for, and encourage the GOOD producers to keep producing GOOD material.

 

[scott.n]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

Sounds reasonable, except for the differentiation between devices. Why should anyone pay +$5 (or +$20 for "complete access") to use the (IMO unexceptional) iPad app when he will presumably be able to login to NYTimes.com using Safari and his basic $15 subscription?

 

[358547]

..

 

[tivoboy]

Wireless carriers must me helping in the pricing models.
.

apple is certainly helping in the pricing models, in the apple will get 30% of the revenue from this. likely 20-30MM a year

 

[hitekalex]

If they charged $5 a month they all would likely be out of jobs pretty quickly.

Nonsense. At $5/month - they can get a LOT of subscribers. Assuming 1 million subscribers - it's $42 million a year (after Apple's 30% cut). $42M/year in revenues can pay for a FEW full-time reporters.

 

[Night Spring]

The first 12 weeks of a full print subscription with home delivery are 50% off and cost $70.20. The rest of the year is $11.70 for each week.

Well... If you call them up after the 50% off period is up, and tell them you are canceling your subscription because full price is too expensive, they'll extend the discount period for a few months. You can keep doing this pretty much indefinitely and never pay full price.

 

[tivoboy]

harumph

So, this pricing IS high and I predict that it will come down by the end of the summer. It SHOULD be about 10$ a month for users across devices. The print edition can be had for about 200$ a year or less, there are student accounts and senior accounts, etc. So if ANY print edition sub gets free access on ANY and ALL devices then there are work arounds.

Personally, I see a black market starting up for print subs to sell access to their digital sub rights for say 7-9$ a month. Who's to say this won't work?

Does your office get a print sub? Sign up as the digital user and just HAND OUT the digital access rights to your employees. Got a family member with a sub? get THEIR digital access rights. I don't really see a way for NYT to prohibit this, other than device specific ID's and such, which would be a huge PIA for them and for users.

 

[Reddmanz]

I agree that their pricing is a bit too high.
Also, that gen MBP just doesn't work with the iPad/phone next to it!

 

[RonD69]

That's Really Expensive!

$35 a month for access to NYT's content on both iPhone and iPad is a bit much for me.

BTW, I don't have NYTimes, but I get their RSS feeds, and those are free.

 

[uraniumwilly]

Anyone know how this price structure compares to Wall Street Journal?

 

[duervo]

I suspect the premium they are charging for this is (in no small part) influenced by the 30% cut that Apple takes. Not really surprising with that in mind.

They may be able to keep within the new in-App guidelines, that become effective this summer, by offering the same "deal" for digital-only content subscriptions on their website. Then, to ensure that they keep active hard copy subscriptions up, they are providing free access to the digital content to print subscribers (obviously a way better deal as can be seen by some quick calculations done by previous posters in this thread.)

Since you cannot access your hard copy newspaper on your iOS device (for obvious reasons), they are able to offer "free" digital access to the same content at a "reduced rate" that way, and still stay within those new in-App guidelines. Looks to me like they may have found a loop-hole around Apple's new in-App subscription guidelines.

I posted this here but will repeat the information:

Like most people I read the NY Times s on my ipad (and sometimes iphone) and on my home computer. The prices they are charging may seem high but there is a much better unadvertised deal below that you can get if you call the NY Times directly at 800-698-4637 (you have to navigate to the option to renew/cancel/suspend your account and then wait for the system to ask for your account number and then hold on the line until it connects you to an operator).

The website does not offer this, but an unadvertised subscription option is the Sunday only paper (you can choose to have half of it delivered on Saturday which is what I do and is quite nice). For the first 12 weeks it is $2.50/issue ($10/month) and then after that it is $5/issue or $20/month. Included for ALL home delivery subscribers (including this subscription model - I confirmed), you get full digital access to the paper online, on the iphone and most importantly for me, the ipad as well. Basically, the best of all worlds. Unless you are only reading the ny times on an iphone only I really do not see how this is not the way to go as you can save a massive amount of money and get the sunday edition delivered as well.

Thought I would share.

Thanks for this. I found it useful.

 

[Popeye206]

Another reason that the web has been free is that the papers were told that "eyeballs" and ads was the way to go. Now it has been nearly a decade and it turns out that companies won't pay enough for online ads to support the papers. The whole free website thing was a failure. So the papers are going to go back to charging for their content. Hopefully this will allow the NY Times to stay in business.

I'm guessing they need to charge to keep things going. Ad revenue is not what it use to be. Lots of media competition for the Ad dollars and advertisers are sparse.

Cost money to produce the news. It's not free. However, I do think the strategy that the NYT's is taking will not last. They are looking for the loyalist to sign up. It's not a very attractive offer for the masses.

I guess they will reconsider this pricing again soon. 6 months or so.