Posted by THE NYTPICKER 24/1 at 11:54 AM
We haven't said anything yet about the NYT's paywall announcement this week. It took us several days to wade through the endless muck of speculation.
Now, here's ours!
Much has been said about the mystery of how this proposal will make money for the NYT. It's true. The plan allows too many shortcuts into the system -- through social media sites, Google, and various hacking methods -- for it to result in a massive influx of cash from web users.
But we're thinking that may be exactly the point.
One of the plan's central promises that any home-delivery subscriber -- including people who only get the "Weekender" plan -- will continue to get complete free access to nytimes.com, and the paper's voluminous achivers.
Our theory: the NYT's unstated goal is to use the metered paywall as an inducement to sell more home delivery subscriptions.
One of the hardest-hit areas in the NYT revenue stream in recent months has been in its subscriber base -- the paper reported a 7.3% dropoff in weekday circulation in 2009, only partly offset by price increases. That marked dropoff has proven very costly to a paper that still generates the majority of its income from advertising and subscriptions to its print edition.
So, why not try to force web users -- who, up until now, have avoided paying for a print subscription because the website is free -- to pony up for a print subscription and keep getting full web access?
Current home-delivery rates include an introductory weekday-only price of $3.10 a week, or roughly $160 a year -- which isn't much more than a web subscription is likely to cost. Why not sign up for home delivery, and get unlimited web as a bonus?
No plans have yet been offered, of course, but we're willing to bet the NYT will be offering print/web bundle subscriptions that sell precisely what we're describing -- and as a means to manipulate as many NYT web readers as possible to cross back over to print.
A significant boost in NYT print subscriptions could substantially bolster the NYT's revenues, especially if enhanced circulation and demos let the paper to jack up its print advertising prices next year -- perhaps, if all goes well, at the same time as a general economic rebound.
We don't know what the NYT is thinking, but it wouldn't surprise us if Janet Robinson, Martin Nisenholtz, Scott Heekin-Canedy and the rest of the planning team sees the paywall as a neat marketing trick for the print edition -- and the best, fastest way to generate more cash flow to a newspaper that still, for all its commitment to web excellence, still counts on the power of print for its daily sustenance.
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