5-21-13
In a commencement address to business students at Columbia University, New York Times CEO Mark Thompson (pictured) told graduating students companies like the New York Times can be reinvented. The Times uses a metered paywall for online content to try to make up lost advertising dollars that has plagued the newspaper industry for years. Thompson says, "The launch of the pay model is the most important and most successful business decision made by The New York Times in many years. We have around 700,000 paid digital subscribers across the company?s products so far and a new nine-figure revenue-stream which is still growing."
Thompson said taking risks is part of being successful. "We will not secure the future of The Times without the kind of bold innovation ? in products and services, in business-model ? which is intrinsically and necessarily risky. The consensus among the experts was that it wouldn?t work, was foolhardy in fact and not needed. People just weren?t prepared to pay for high quality content on the internet and, besides, wasn?t digital advertising enough ? wouldn?t it grow until, just as with print advertising in the golden age of physical newspapers, it alone was enough to support America?s newsrooms? Much of the rest of the US newspaper industry is now following suit. And developing this pay model, launching a suite of new subscription products to attract additional new subscribers, is central to our plans for the future."
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