Time Inc, publisher of SI.com, Time.com and CNNMoney.com, is to start experimenting with a mixture of paid-for and free content access on sections of its sites over the next eight months.
With 20 million monthly unique visitors, the New York Times could make $240 million from charging these users just $1.00 a month on average, according to Poynter’s calculations.
“Beyond being a gamble worth taking because of the potentially significant payoff, there is no realistic alternative to charging for quality content that anyone has presented,” says Steve Brill, who goes on to set out his plan for getting off ‘the free-content treadmill’.