Romenesko linked to a few other good tidbits in reaction to the NYT TimesSelect decision in addition to the WSJ item immediately below.
The Wall Street Journal, the only major daily requiring an online subscription, says things are doing quite well, thank you, in the paid Web world. However, new owner Rupert Murdoch has been making noises about ending the pay plan.
“So far, we are very successful,” Daniel Bernard, the Journal’s online general manager, told E&P. “We have a lot of great content that is open to the public, but we maintain our core content that is premium.”
Journal spokeswoman Christine Mohan said more than 75% of the wsj.com content remains behind the subscription wall, which requires users to have a full print subscription or pay the $79-per-year online price. Some 983,000 online-only subscribers remain on board.
“We feel that it is a successful model, we want to grow our advertising so we are offering free content and expanded video,” she added. “But we are remaining with our model, it is riding the subscription revenue.”
Industry vet Ken Doctor mentioned the following concerns about the NYT move at his Content Bridges blog:
The obvious one is the complete reliance on advertising as the only substantial future revenue driver. Not only is the Times giving up on the idea of subscriber revenue. It is placing in jeopardy other millions of dollars it now takes in on licensing of its archives for use by such companies as Lexis Nexis and Factiva. As part of its Times Select termination, it is making its recent (post-1986) archives free to the public. Those archives -- behind firewalls -- generate streams of revenue to the Times. And look for licensors to be paying the Times lots less in financial guarantees going forward, as availability on the free web raises questions of value.
The near-total reliance on ad revenue means redoubling and re-tripling efforts to get the online ad business right, maximizing traffic and yields. Sure, these efforts have been underway for years now, but many news companies continue to underperform web companies in sheer execution.
The stealth problem created I believe though is around print subscriptions and print circulation revenue. Of those 787,000 Times Select customers, almost a half million -- 471,000 -- are print subscribers who've gotten TS for "free." That's a retention strategy, and one that goes by the board as print subscribers look around and say, "I don't need to be a subscriber to get archives and Frank Rich." I can't believe how many people -- well-schooled, well-heeled, appreciative of journalism types -- tell me that they've dropped their print NYT sub, just relying on the web. There's sometimes a twinge of guilt, but it passes quickly.
Sure,Times Select may not have been the best retention strategy, but retention of a half-million Times subscribers just got a bit harder.