Times Co. will charge $15 every four weeks for unlimited access to the site from a computer or mobile phone, the company said in a statement today. A package for access online and through the paper’s tablet-computer application will run $20 every four weeks and access from any device will be $35.
Times Co., based in New York, is looking to its website to bolster revenue as print advertising and circulation sales fall. The company’s revenue slid 1.9 percent last year to $2.39 billion, the fourth year of decline.
“This is really a major move,” said Edward Atorino, an analyst at Benchmark Co. in New York. “This is the future of the company.”
Non-subscribers will still be allowed to read 20 stories for free each month, and access the NYTimes.com home page and section fronts, the company said.
Times Co. rose 24 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $9.10 at 1:32 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange trading, after rising as much as 5.5 percent. The stock had dropped 9.6 percent this year before today.
Free Stories
Under the plan unveiled today, subscribers to the print editions of the newspaper, whether they subscribe daily or only on weekends, will be able to register for full, free access to the website. Readers who find links to stories from some search engines and blogs will also be able to read those stories for free, even if they’ve reached the monthly limit, the company said.
“This allows us to reinforce our revenue stream and put ourselves in a position to continue to deliver high-quality information,” Janet Robinson, the company’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. “There may be in the early days a dip in traffic. From a longer-term perspective, we will grow our audience and our advertising base.”
The newspaper’s website has been boosting its readership, increasing its monthly unique visitors to 49 million in February from 45 million in December, according to the research firm ComScore Inc.
Online advertising spending in the U.S. grew 13.9 percent to $25.8 billion in 2010, according to EMarketer, a New York- based research firm. It was the first year that online advertising topped print newspaper advertising, the firm said. U.S. print newspaper advertising fell 8.2 percent to $22.8 billion in 2010, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
===== An announcement from ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER Jr. Publisher, The New York Times
A Letter to Our Readers About Digital Subscriptions
This week marks a significant transition for The New York Times as we introduce digital subscriptions. It’s an important step that we hope you will see as an investment in The Times, one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world and on any platform. The change will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our Web site and on mobile applications.
This change comes in two stages. On Thursday, we rolled out digital subscriptions to our readers in Canada, which will enable us to fine-tune the customer experience before our global launch. On March 28, we will begin offering digital subscriptions in the United States and the rest of the world.
If you are a home delivery subscriber of The New York Times, you will continue to have full and free access to our news, information, opinion and the rest of our rich offerings on your computer, smartphone and tablet. International Herald Tribune subscribers will also receive free access to NYTimes.com.
If you are not a home delivery subscriber, you will have free access up to a defined reading limit. If you exceed that limit, you will be asked to become a digital subscriber.
This is how it will work, and what it means for you:
• On NYTimes.com, you can view 20 articles each month at no charge (including slide shows, videos and other features). After 20 articles, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber, with full access to our site.
• On our smartphone and tablet apps, the Top News section will remain free of charge. For access to all other sections within the apps, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber.
• The Times is offering three digital subscription packages that allow you to choose from a variety of devices (computer, smartphone, tablet). More information about these plans is available at www.nytimes.com/access.
• Again, all New York Times home delivery subscribers will receive free access to NYTimes.com and to all content on our apps. If you are a home delivery subscriber, go to http://homedelivery.nytimes.com to sign up for free access.
• Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles.
• The home page at NYTimes.com and all section fronts will remain free to browse for all users at all times.
For more information, go to www.nytimes.com/digitalfaq.
Thank you for reading The New York Times, in all its forms.
Sincerely,
ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER Jr.
Publisher, The New York Times
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