New York Times continues holding off on paid iPad app
updated 10:35 am EST, Wed March 2, 2011
nytimes.com paywall coming 'shortly'
The New York Times iPad app will eventually switch to the planned pay model, says the newspaper's chairman, Arthur Sulzberger. When a revised app was released last October, the Times initially promised that a paywall would be put up early this year. Content continues to be freely accessible however, and Sulzberger did not get into timing or other specifics in a talk at the Financial Times Digital Media Conference on Wednesday.
The New York Times website, on the other hand, may be on the verge of switching to a paid format. Sulzberger explains that the paywall will come "very shortly," and that the newspaper doesn't foresee a "massive drop in traffic." In a press release issued this morning, CEO Janet Robinson elaborates that the paywall is "in the final testing phase."
The company has so far been mum on the prospect of adopting Apple's new subscription model for apps. Any outside subscription support will have to be matched by in-app ones costing the same or less, despite Apple claiming a 30 percent cut of in-app revenue. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are probing Apple for possible antitrust violations.
