Times Select Unbound....But What Will Replace It?

Times Select has been buried, but the undertaker is the New York Post, so how much credence can we put in it? (And isn't that the simple point of the Murdoch/Dow Jones affair? When you read a report, you'd like to believe it, but with certain papers, and their owners, you just don't.)

There's been quite a Times Select debate, in and around Mickey Kaus on Slate and on Huff Post recently, fueled a bit more by the Post story. Yes, there is a chorus of skeptics about the Times Select idea, and it's not hard to join them.
When I raised the question of the Times' strategy with it, and with the newer "All Access", I emphasized the point that the Times is trying to hold onto print subscriber revenue. As you look at all the 2Q earnings numbers coming in, that point is only underlined. Print ad revenues are starting to get comfortable in a double-digit decline range -- and this is in a time of a good economy.

So the call to drop the Times Select barrier is only half an answer. Taking it down definitely would let the Times' columnists play on the free Web -- good for the national discourse. And more page views would bring in more dollars, arguably approaching the Times Select subscription revenue lost. But the problem is a deeper one. How does the Times pay all those reporters and editors?

One answer is the circulation revenue, which captures almost three out of every 10 dollars (28%) that the Times takes in overall. It's really a simple concept: you want deep, serious, experienced journalism, you pay for it. Just because the Internet has accidentally destroyed much of that model across the newspaper and magazine world doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.

Yes, you can get loads of "good-enough" journalism, free, 24/7, on the web. But is it worth paying something for higher-quality content? Ask your friends. Ask around. They'll tell you they do know the difference between the Times, for instance, and the good-enough stuff they see all around them. But, hey, who needs to read on paper anymore, so why pay for the paper? And it's not their problem that the world's changing around. Okay, maybe they'll you, if pressed, that they feel a little sheepish about not paying something....but , hey have you seen their new iPhone?

So the Times is left to make the best it can out of this dispassionate time we live in. That's what Times Select tried to do, bridging print and online reading, associating a value with it, and generating $10 million a year, and a chorus of objectors.

So I think the Times' thrust to keep circulation revenue as long as it can makes sense. But there may be a better way than Times Select.

Times Select seems artificial because it divides one set of content -- most of it free online from the Times -- from another. It's not just a barrier; it causes reader confusion. In our times, in confusion, readers go elsewhere quickly.

So what the Times needs to do is associate the value of the print subscription not with content sets, but with delivery types.

Its current cellphone news product is vanilla, basic top 10 news stories.

It needs to build out a fully functioning mobile product that takes full advantage of -- and allows readers to interact with -- its news, its entertainment and culture coverage, its sports coverage and more. You know, the kind of thing that would play well on that iPhone.

And here's the good part: people (we) for some reason will pay for mobile services. There's really no good reason for it, but Verizon, ATT and the rest have conditioned us to do that. It makes some kind of odd sense.

So the Times, harnessing its own content and judiciously adding other content (including its About stuff) and functionality then has a chargeable product. They can charge non-subscribers for it (and probably more than the $49 a year they are getting from Times Select), and they can bundle it with print subscriptions, which slowly become real "All Access" subscriptions to the world of the Times, not to the newspaper.

It's one solution and maybe one Janet Robinson had in mind when she spoke of putting more effort into mobile in the coming year. Will it work? It's hard to say of course, but stanching subscriber loss for even couple more years is going to be highly meaningful to the employee ranks -- and the readers -- of the Times.

Comments

[Bryan Murley]

And here's the good part: people (we) for some reason will pay for mobile services. There's really no good reason for it, but Verizon, ATT and the rest have conditioned us to do that. It makes some kind of odd sense.

Just because people are mostly forced by the incumbents to pony up ridiculous prices for mobile content currently does not mean a) that such will be the case in perpetuity, or b) that they would then pay for access to the NYTimes on their phones - especially for more than $49/year.

Let's assume, for instance, that more phones begin to function like the iPhone, with a regular web browser instead of a crippled mobile browser. The same "info wants to be free" ethos will eventually seep into the mobile phone space.

It's an interesting argument, but ultimately, unpersuasive, IMHO.