BBC Worldwide Americas signaled that a serious online push is under way, adding former Associated Press general manager of digital and NYTimes.com vice president of product management Nick Ascheim as senior VP, digital media.
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The New York Times finally announced the details for its paywall, which will take effect March 28.
Users will be able to read 20 articles per month free-of-charge, after which they can pay $15 per month for access to the website, $20 for the Web and an iPad app, and $35 for access via all digital platforms. Home-delivery subscribers will receive free access to all platforms except e-readers (Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook).
Visits through search engines or social-networking sites will not count toward the 20-article monthly limit, but there will be a cap of five articles per day via Google.
The Times added that the paywall will be enacted immediately for users in Canada, to allow it to test operations and handle software issues before March 28.
“The pay model for NYTimes.com is in the final testing phase, and we expect it will launch shortly,” The New York Times Co. president and CEO Janet L. Robinson announced in a press release prior to the company’s presentation at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.
Speaking about other New York Times matters, she added:
The improvement in print advertising trends that we began to see in late January continued into February, and we finished the month with print advertising revenues down in the low-single-digits. Similar to January, digital advertising revenues in February were up in the mid-single-digits, as solid growth at the News Media Group was partially offset by softness at the About Group.
We continue to expect circulation revenues in the first quarter to decrease in line with the declines we experienced in the second half of 2010. While we continue to aggressively manage our costs, we expect operating expenses in the first quarter to increase 1-2 percent, mainly due to higher newsprint prices, pension expense, and promotion costs.
The New York Times has been busy plugging leaks in its soon-to-deploy paywall, as Bloomberg reports that it discovered some 700 glitches and has repaired approximately 500 of them thus far.
The paywall is slated to be implemented by March, and remaining issues include how the system will determine who must pay and at which point the paywall takes effect, according to Bloomberg.
One potential hiccup, according to Bloomberg: The Times plans to charge users after they have viewed a certain number of stories, but those directed to the site from social networks such as Facebook can view unlimited stories.
Times spokesman Robert Christie told Bloomberg the issues are “routine,” adding, “This is a massive, massive technical undertaking.”
And Silver Spring, Md.-based newspaper consultant and analyst John Morton told Bloomberg, “The Times‘ Web site gets a lot of visitors, and they don’t want to drive those people away. Everybody is watching them to see how they do it.”
At a conference in Munich, Germany, last week, The New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said, “We believe that enough people will pay, but we will not cut ourselves off from the rest.”
When The New York Times officially implements its paywall early this year, the monthly cost will be less than the $19.99 charge for a subscription to the newspaper on Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, a source told Bloomberg.
President Scott Heekin-Canedy had said last month that the cost for full access to the Times‘ Web site would be comparable to that of a Kindle subscription, according to Bloomberg.
Print subscribers will receive full online access, and Bloomberg reported that print subscriptions to the Times cost $11.70 per week, or roughly $50 per month.
Mac William Bishop, video producer for The New York Times‘ DealBook, spoke with Beet.TV founder and executive producer Andy Plesser about the financial section’s video expansion plans and his approach to financial video news reporting.
Jeffrey Cain, managing editor of The New York Times‘ Dealbook, told Beet.TV founder and executive producer Andy Plesser the financial section will be expanded, adding more data, video, and reporters.
Dealbook creator and editor Andrew Ross Sorkin spoke with Donya Blaze about launching and growing Dealbook in a Media Beat interview earlier this month.
Stacy Green, formerly manager of digital partnerships and social-media marketing for NYTimes.com and The New York Times, joined Mashable as director of communications, where she will oversee public relations and marketing and work with the social-media news site’s business-development, events, sales, and advertising teams to improve outreach efforts, strategic marketing, and internal and external communications.
At the Times, she helped to implement online-engagement and social-marketing strategies, as well as managing marketing for the newspaper’s Open platform and TimesOpen series. She previously served as public-relations manager for NYTimes.com, where she helped launch the blogger-outreach program and social-media presence for the corporate communications department.
