The New York Times will begin to charge its online readers who wanted to enjoy the privilege of unlimited access to its website starting this month.
Ranked three in the biggest US newspapers, imposing a fee to view The New York Times website marks the start of giving limits to web surfers who wanted to get the latest local and international news under different news categories.
For the past 15 years, web surfers enjoy a free browse to their website without having any limit.
But now, $15 will be paid every four weeks of limitless website access making it to become $195 per year.
Meanwhile, using Times’ software for Apple’s ipad is $20 every four weeks leading to a payment of $260 every year.
Those who subscribe the print edition of The New York Times will avail of the 20 free web articles monthly while the “top news” section will stay free for mobile application users.
They have come up to this idea for the reason that The New York Times Co. is trying to cope up with the sudden drop on their print advertising as the company has announced Thursday regarding their pricing system plan.
Their annual revenue dropped to 27 percent. They had $3.3 billion in the year 2006 but it fell on $2.4 billion last year. A loss on print advertising was greatly observed.
FT.com Managing Editor Rob Grimshaw says, “I think this will show that people are willing to pay for high-quality, original reporting.”
Charging a certain amount to people reflects on the publisher’s character of what we call confidence on the newspaper’s quality.
In fact, The New York Times has already gained 100 Pulitzer Prizes.
People will be willing to pay for as long as they are (–foul word(s) removed–)ured of the publisher’s quality of output.
To be able to ease the switch regarding the imposed charges, introductory discounts will be given.