Paid Newspaper Sites To Become Obsolete

Editor & Publisher:

Now that The New York Times has thrown in the towel on TimesSelect, its two-year-old premium service limiting online columns to paid subscribers, is paid online newspapering dead?

Perhaps, but not everywhere. 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."

Read the whole story: Editor & Publisher

Comments

[eaglecapri]

I love the New York Times, but I absolutely hate Times Select. There is nothing worse than clicking on a story and you're re-directed to a page asking for money to read the damn thing! Good riddance!

[David423]

I hope that the Globe and Mail in Toronto gets the message and follows suit.

[Ginzaman]

No way I'd pay for online stuff. If you know where to look you shouldn't have to do it. I tried subscribing for the printed NYT. NEVER AGAIN.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Web news is a good extension of, but will never entirely replace the 'dead tree' edition, and I have no qualms with paying to support publication costs. What interests me is WHO owns the newspapers etc. Remember Randolph Hearst? It's all about the editorial control, bay-bee...

[nunzia]

Why would anyone pay to read the NYT (Judith Miller, for instance) or the WP (drumbeats for the war) online?

[bikerdude]

Why? Dowd, Rich, Herbert, Krugman...

[racetoinfinity]

Especially Krugman.

[Bulbul]

I subscribed it for one year just to read Dowd and Rich. Then found out Dowd disappears from op. ed. for long period of time. Not worth 50 bucks and definitely was not going to renew this year. Days of the bloggers Huffo gets you the instant news lot faster than NY times. Not giving a cent to WCJ, if it comes free, we shall see.

[pimothy]

I signed up for Times Select from day one, and liked it's content. However I had a terrible time with system crashes that would require reboots. Localnet.com was my provider and they tried different schemes that never really worked. I just wondered if anyone else had these problems. Oh yes NYT never ever got back to me with any kind of assistance. Anyone else?

[olivia]

If Rupert Murdoch makes the Wall Street Journal online free, I will still not read it.

We know what Murdoch does to journalism. No point in witnessing it.