LA Times Going the Paywall Route

Outside the Beltway

CC0 Public Domain

LA Times Going the Paywall Route

Steven L. Taylor

February 25, 2012

Comments

Via The Wrap: L.A. Times to Put Up Its Paywall March 5

As TheWrap reported at the time, the daily paper will institute a metered paywall whereby online readers can access up to 15 stories a month for free. After that they will need to buy a subscription or lose access.
The subscription plan — which the paper is referring to as a membership program — will take effect on March 5 with an introductory rate of 99 cents a month. After the 99 cents for the first four weeks, the digital-only rate will rise to $3.99 a week. Other packages will be offered, including $1.99 a week for unlimited digital access and the Sunday newspaper. Online access will be included at no extra charge for print subscribers.

This sounds roughly like the NYT‘s system (i.e., some articles for free).

I remain skeptical of such plans as they seem to assume that thtr are there enough people who currently are both not subscribers and who need more than 15 stories a month to make this move profitable. Is this likely?

I tend to view paywalls as desperate moves for a print industry that is unable to figure out how to adapt to the digital era.

8 responses to “LA Times Going the Paywall Route”

Ron Beasley

February 25, 2012 at 12:42 pm

Is there still an LA Times?
DC Loser

February 25, 2012 at 12:44 pm

With the NYT, all you need to do is to go on their site and not log in and delete their cookies to reset the number of articles downloaded count.
Robert Prather

February 25, 2012 at 3:43 pm

I mentioned in a Tweet earlier that I think the only way the pay wall will work is if most or all major papers do this at the same time. It would probably qualify as collusion, but I don’t see how else it can work.
James Joyner

February 25, 2012 at 7:12 pm

As I understand it, both the NYT and the London Times have made tremendous amounts of money with their paywalls. This, despite the NYT not only offering 30 free articles a month per IP address but there being dozens of known, easy ways around (notably: deleting everything after html in the URL).
Steven L. Taylor

February 25, 2012 at 7:18 pm

@James Joyner: Intriguing. I am surprised.
Robert Prather

February 25, 2012 at 7:25 pm

I must say I’m surprised as well. I hope they do because somebody has to pay for all the reporting.

I read a long time ago that the news divisions at the broadcast networks were traditionally money losers and the losses were covered by the rest of the operations. I’m not sure if it’s true, but if it is, the newspapers don’t have that sort of back up at the moment.
Robert Prather

February 25, 2012 at 7:26 pm

Incidentally, I could be remembering wrong or I could be remembering a line of dialogue from a movie like Network.
Just nutha’ ig’rant cracker

February 25, 2012 at 10:19 pm

Is it possible that y’all are looking at the wrong end of the transaction? The Korea Times did a similar offer a year or so ago–for the purpose of boosting print subscriptioins by offering free online service. Hmmmm…….