The New York Times Locks Some Content Behind Pay Wall

Posted on September 19, 2005

In a letter from the Editor, The New York Times online has announced a new subscription service called TimesSelect which launches today. For $49.95 a year, subscribers will have access to special content and up to 100 archived articles a month.

The clear draw here is the access to 100 articles a month from the archives, although it seems kind of chintzy to make people pay $49.95 a year and not get full, unfettered access to the archives. The letter didn't say which of its columnists are being placed behind the pay wall, but speculation says that columnists such as Maureen Dowd and David Brooks may be headed behind the wall. Apparently, they also have to participate in these video interviews and additional Web-only postings.

Do people really want to see endless interviews with Maureen Dowd, or just read her column online? Will those columnists' readership decline substantially, as most people elect to keep reading the free version which has all the current news stories? It will be interesting to see how the experiment turns out.