Two years ago, THE NEW YORK TIMES tried earning revenues and perhaps enhancing its brandname through the paid site TimesSelect. There weren't enough takers. Now, it's going in this direction again. The last piece to be decided is how to bill eyeballs for access to its online content.
The issue, of course, is that in 2009, is that publication enough of a must-read to pay for access? With so much content available for free, we tend to put together our own versions of the news and analysis by clicking on a number of online sites. THE NEW YORK TIMES is not as vital to our functioning, whatever our profession, as it had been.
Charging could be the arrow in the heart of THE NEW YORK TIMES. A better approach for survival might be radically reduce costs. This could be accomplished by relying less on pampered, often smug brandname writers and contracting out work to hungry, wildly talented non-brandnames.
Comments