New York Times behind a paywall: what are the consequences?

They are not the first. And neither will they be the last. The New York Times, the second largest newspaper in the United States, has limited its accessibility for people browsing the web. Online readers without a subscription can now only read 20 articles each month. For people that access the site from a tablet or smart phone, only the top news section is available for free. In order not to estrange people that reach the NY Times via search engines or social media referrals, the monthly limit of 20 articles does not apply there. Instead, a daily limit applies.

Web analytics firm Experian Hitwise studied how the number of visitor to the NY Times’ sites developed in the twelve days leading up to the paywall and the twelve days after it went live. As expected, the number of visitors declined after parts of the site became unaccessible. On most days, the decrease was between 5 and 10%. On one day, the number of visitors actually steeply increased, which Hitwise believes to be caused by two news items that generated a lot of attention.

The effect was even more visible when looking at the number of pageviews as unregistered users are still allowed access to 20 articles each month. The number of pageviews dropped between 11 and 30% over the twelve days after the paywell went up.

Simultaneously to closing off parts of their site, the NY Times introduced three digital subscription plans with which visitors can purchase access to th information on the site. Subscribers to the printed version of the Times get unlimited access to the digital version.

The NY Times’ paywall allows casual readers more possibilities than the paywall of the British Times, a newspaper from Rupert Murdoch’s stable on which we wrote here. Murdoch has been the most active newspaper publisher in finding suitable ways to market digital journalism. More newspapers are investigating a suitable balance between drawing in the crowds and protecting valuable journalistic content.

It is still unclear what the effects of this move are for the income of the New York Times. Murdoch, too, has never been very generous with figures on the costs and benefits of erecting a paywall with his newspapers. As publishers are under no obligation to release detailed results on their experiments, it is unlikely that the NY Times will do so any time soon.