15 Mar 2011

Charging for digital news is no panacea. It’s a platform for a growth, and the beginning of a new business model. Most newspaper company CEOs have done the math, and with the current trajectory of print ad decline, modest digital ad growth and no digital circulation money, they have no hope of sustaining their businesses into 2015. That’s a bleak, but fair, conclusion.

Extremely well said. The NYT’s paywall is a beginning, not an end — unless tragedy befalls the company before it can adequately build on this beginning. Hopefully, the paywall also means that NYT’s management understands the dire situation they’re in (hey Carlos Slim!). 

Onto the next question: what will the pricing be? Any margin of error on pricing and the situation may deteriorate even more quickly. Again, hopefully the Times will be open to adapting quickly if needed.

Imminent NYT Pay Fence Divides World into Core Customers — and Others - Ken Doctor - Seeking Alpha