Cover Page Send to a Friend Print Version Contact Us Advertise Post a Free Classified

Globe: We may wall
off our web site

Boston.com could start charging for content

By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Aug 10, 2009

The Boston Globe may get walled off before it gets sold off.

The newspaper’s owner, the New York Times Co., said late last week that it will likely adopt a pay model for Boston.com in the future.

The newspaper informed its unions of this intent last Thursday and publicly acknowledged the move on Friday.

“Nothing is absolute, but we are heading toward some sort of consumer pay model,” a Globe spokesperson told the Associated Press.

No timetable has been set for the move, nor has the paper decided yet on what sort of model will be employed.

It is exploring several options, including allowing a certain number of pages to be viewed for free before fees set in or charging for access to certain sections, such as sports, arts and entertainment.

The possible move comes as more and more newspapers are exploring a switch to paid content.

The New York Times conducted a survey of readers to see how receptive they’d be to a paid content model and is expected to institute one within the coming year, two years after abandoning a program that walled off certain web site content behind a paid wall.

News Corp., whose WSJ.com is already paid, will make all of its online news content premium within the next year, CEO Rupert Murdoch recently said.

Late last week, word came that the Financial Times is considering an iTunes-like model, in which readers would have to pay on a per-article basis, instead of buying a full subscription to FT.com, which along with WSJ.com is one of the industry’s only examples of a successful paid-paper site.

The NYT Co. confirmed last week that the Globe has been put on the block for possible sale.

The company renegotiated the paper’s union contracts earlier this year after threatening to shut down the money-losing paper.

Several serious bidders have emerged, including a group led by ex-ad man Jack Connors and another by Boston Celtics owner Stephen Pagliuca.

Louisa Ada Seltzer is a staff writer for Media Life.	© 2009 Media Life Magazine

Latest headlines CBS takes its first Thursday, a slow one Preparing for life after 'Oprah' wraps up 'Happily Ever Faster,' don't bet on it In Union Square, dunk Joey the Clown Do you understand web measurement? Agencies to Nielsen: Reinstate live stream Rachel, help, we're being left in the dark Best tube bets this weekend BBC America president Garth Ancier steps down Nicke Bergstrom becomes creative director at Mother New York Nathan Hackstock becomes West Coast CD at Sapient Interactive Frank Hahn and Naoki Ito become ECDs at W+K Tokyo Catherine Balsam-Schwaber becomes SVP of marketing at iVillage Chris De Luca becomes sports editor at the Chicago Sun-Times Jennifer Howard rises to senior reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education James Van Der Beek files for divorce after six years