It’s a good day at my house. My Wired subscription has arrived with 2 issues in the mail today! However, it’s not a totally great day. You see The New York Times announced yesterday that they will start charging for unlimited online access in January 2011. Find it at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/business/media/21times.html?em
Here’s my letter.
Dear New York Times:
I heart you. I really, really do. I love your newspaper, your writers, the quality of your content and I know your employees are great. I frequently link to your website. I’ve done it over the years – to my co-workers, my friends and now I link to you via my blog (veritablefount.wordpress.com) and my Twitter account (twitter.com/julieaeastman). I even have your iPhone app (thanks for making that available for free, BTW).
I’m a newspaper reader from way back. I was a raised in a small farm community (pop. around 350) and we had a weekly newspaper published in town. Where else could you read about the neighbors gathering for coffee and cake where “a good time was had by all?” Those were the good, old days.
I feel for the struggles your industry is going through. I wish I could do more to help you out. I occasionally do purchase a hard copy of the NYT – especially when you are on an airline flight and you are a captive audience with no access to the internet. Of course, I haven’t flown in the last month so maybe reading big newspapers in coach is verboten now – who knows…
But like others in these economic times, I’m in transition. Certain items are no longer in the budget – you have to find alternatives. Fortunately, for me I practically live at the library and they still subscribe to the hard copy of the New York Times. So there’s that.
Anyway, like I said, I feel your pain. I have been a corporate pricing person myself. When you are brainstorming the strategic alternatives and you have corporate objectives on revenue goals and productivity improvements – you have to try different things. Heck, I might have even suggested charging for web access myself, but I probably would have done that around 1994 – set the standard so to speak. It’s hard to go backwards now…
I assume you did a lot of market research to determine what your customer wants. I hope you read Free by Chris Anderson (I got my copy at the library for free – isn’t that funny?). I assume you did, since you had a book review back in July 2009. Here’s the link just in case: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/books/review/Postrel-t.html
Chris did a great job in this book articulating the concept of free – both historically and what we are seeing now in the digital age. Some would think that the struggles in the media world (given the tumble in advertising revenues for TV, radio and newspapers) is fairly recent, but it’s really just new lipstick on the same old pig. The world changes and you got to change with it. It will be interesting to see where NYT is in 5 years and what you’ll be doing. I’m confident you’ll come out stronger even if you look a little different.
In closing, I have to mention another article you published last month: Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/business/media/28paywall.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=newspapers. As a pricing person, love that you engage what very few people and companies understand – how to enjoy the rewards that good pricing discipline can bring. Anyway, your detractors (including some bloggers) don’t think this venture to charge for online access will be successful. As Alan D. Mutter states in your December article: “One of the problems is newspapers fired so many journalists and turned them loose to start so many blogs. They should have executed them. They wouldn’t have had competition. But they foolishly let them out alive.”
Sincerely yours,
Julie A. Eastman
Veritable Fount Blog 