This could be an enormously bold move with repercussions across the newspaper industry, or maybe not.

But the story has the entire media industry buzzing just the same with the official word that The New York Times will erect a paywall around its content, charging frequent visitors to access stories on its web site.

Though the paper has been mulling the idea for over a year, few details are being released at this point, and it would appear Times executives themselves have not settled on all the details, such as how much it will cost and who must pay.

Here's what they are saying.

The vast majority of online Times readers are occasional visitors, and they will not be charged under the new system, which will be imposed at the beginning of next year.

Charges will only kick in after a certain number of stories have been accessed. Just how many stories--12 or 200 or 1,000--has not been determined, nor has the amount frequent visitors will have to pay for access beyond that number.

The Times makes clear the paywall, which it called a metered system, is intended to generate revenue to offset losses it's seen on the print side of its business.

But in going to this metered system, the paper must find just the right equation for how much to charge and whom. It must balance the revenue it gains through subscriptions against what it will lose in online advertising revenue with what's surely to be a decline in visitors as some longtime Times readers choose to go elsewhere for their news.

If that point is such that a very small percentage of visitors end up paying small fee, the impact of the Times paywall will be modest, both in terms of the revenue it generates and its impact on the rest of the newspaper industry.

But if the cutoff point for free stories is low and the fees beyond that point substantial, comparable to the nearly $200 a year The Wall Street Journal charges online subscribers, the impact would be huge for the Times, truly generating a whole new stream of revenue, and for the newspaper industry as other papers with quality content jump in to roll out similar paywalls.

The Times says its research tells it that its most loyal readers are willing to pay for access but it also makes clear it doesn't know just what that critical point is where it can maximize subscription revenue with the least loss of online ad revenue, and it could take many months of tinkering to find it.

And of course all that time, it will be testing price points and the number of free stories it makes available.

Some 18 million visit NYTimes.com each month, and the site reportedly generated $100 million in ad revenue in 2008.

The metered paywall is similar to that of the Financial Times, which the financial daily erected in 2007. That site now has nearly 2 million registered users, of which some 120,000 are paid online subscribers.

In explaining its plans for the metered paywall, the Times issued a statement:

"Why are we changing our model at all?

"We are doing so because we believe that a second revenue stream will be an important part of our future. While digital advertising will continue to be the major contributor to our success on the web, we expect that online subscription revenue will improve our ability to grow an important part of this business."

Between now and the beginning of next year, the paper will be building the infrastructure that will allow it to track users and change them for access.

But even if the Times paywall turns out to be a success, it's no sure bet newspapers across the country will suddenly begin building their own.

The key for any such model to work is quality content, and there just aren't that many papers that can claim a quality news product, especially with all the newsroom cutbacks in recent years.

While publishers now realize they made a mistake in going free in the first place, a decade or more ago, it may now be too late to begin charging for content, especially if much of it can be found elsewhere online.