The New York Times unveiled its widely anticipated digital subscription plan Thursday, a big step by one of the most impactful newspapers in the world. In the months to come, the headlong dive by this resource-rich media giant should help answer the biggest question in digital news: Can newspapers convert digital readers they have conditioned for years to expect “free” into paying customers?

In other words, if The New York Times can’t, who can?

Under the new pricing structure, which goes live in 11 days, nothing will change for print subscribers. They will continue to get free access to nytimes.com and any Times app for digital devices like the iPhone and iPad. Also remaining free to all is the “Top News” section on the Times app, and the landing pages for every section of the web site.

But for everyone and everything else, the free ride is over. And with a three-tired pricing structure which parses online and other digital media the Times is strongly indicating it sees its economic future less as a purveyor of news on the web and more as a publisher through mobile devices like the iPad and apps, access to which can be more easily controlled.

In the “web versus app” debate, the Times seems to be taking sides. Because every mobile device has a browser, the Times could have created a tier that did not include an app component, but it chose not to. You get the web version of the paper tossed in any subscription, print or digital.

And yet the biggest change will be that Times site, which has always been free to anyone anywhere, goes behind a paywall. It’s less restrictive than the Times of London (no relation), which charges for every story, and more generous than the five-click convention popularized by Google’s search-referral protocol.

The new pricing structure limits free access to stories on nytimes.com to 20 per month — 20 links, more accurately, because it also is counted against access to slideshows and videos and not just text. After 20 clicks, “we will ask you to become a digital subscriber, with full access to our site,” the Times said in a statement.

There are three digital plans to choose from. Full digital access will cost $35 for four weeks — about $10 less than a print subscription, and includes both smartphone and tablet access, as well as access to the Times Reader, a desktop app-like version. For $20 you get the site and tablet access. For $15, you get the site and smartphone access.

The Times also said it would offer a subscription through iTunes, by June 30. Apple takes 30 percent of the subscription, and only shares reader data with a publisher if a reader specifically allows it.

The Times now enters an arena already occupied by The Wall Street Journal, which has always restricted access to its website, and the Financial Times, which like The Times of London is locked down to non-subscribers. But the conventional wisdom is that these two newspapers serve a niche audience willing to pay a premium for deep coverage in a specific area — financial news. General-interest newspapers serve a broader constituency that, in the age of the internet, can find most of the news it needs for free elsewhere.

The New York Times is often called the nation’s newspaper of record, the theory goes, and thus if it cannot entice readers to pay something for digital delivery then nobody has a chance. New York Times sites had 31.43 million uniques in February and 683 million pageviews, according to ComScore, as reported by AdAge.

The FT wasted no time saying it knows this model can work. “The FT pioneered the metered model in 2007 and we’ve seen both digital content and digital advertising revenues rise every year since,” FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw said in a statement. “Last year, we experienced record growth in online subscribers, double-digital growth in online advertising, and overall digital revenues grew by 47 percent.”

In an interview with AdAge, New York Times Company President and CEO Janet Robinson said the company expected “there may be a slight dip in traffic” to the advertiser-supported website. “But from the perspective of the way we’ve constructed the bundles and will remain part of the digital ecosystem,” she said, “we believe we have protected our traffic and consequently protected our advertising inventory and advertising revenue.”

The Times said it would introduce the new pricing in the United States on March 28 but was doing so immediately in Canada, with one subscription option, “which will enable us to fine-tune the customer experience before our global launch.”

Photo: John Abell/Wired.com

See Also: