The Wall Street Journal online is reporting that the New York Times is planning to launch a paid subscription system, likely next month, for online content. The system will allow casual surfers a certain amount of free content and targets instead the 15% of “heavy users” for a monthly sub fee. Right now, according to the report, the site generates $100 million in web advertising and 30 million unique visitors every month.
The Dallas Morning News will also begin charging $16.95 per month for an online subscription in February. According to the Wall Street Journal report:
Jim Moroney, the paper’s publisher, said the primary goal is to get print subscribers more engaged with the digital editions and observe how non-subscribers respond to paying for access. He said the paper has “very little expectations around the Internet website and paying for access to it.”
Now for the $64,000 question: will contributors benefit from any of these schemes?
