CASE SYNOPSISThe cae is all about the Metered Paywall System adopted by “The New York Times” that allowed users to read upto 20 articles per month for free but after that they have to pay the subscription fees. Case discusses whether this paywall has been successful or not. Along with advantages it also gives us a understanding of underlying problems with paywall. The newspaper industry had been suffering from revenue declines over the past decade, and the transition to digital media was difficult to navigate. Revenues from online advertising were not sufficient to replace the loss of print revenue, and many publishers had explored charging readers for content, with mixed success, where specialized sources like The Wall Street Journal were successfully using the model, but several other general news sites had failed. There were several difficult issues to examine in determining the digital strategy for The Times. Would consumers remain as engaged with a site protected by a paywall? Would advertisers react positively to such a move that walled off readers? Would readers value both the print and digital versions of the content, or would it become necessary to create new content? The Times had several choices in designing the paywall, including determining the digital content, pricing, as well as how to interface with readers of secondary news websites like blogs that posted links to news articles. Should they design a "leaky" paywall where determined users could easily slip through, or a "bulletproof" paywall like the Financial Times had done, where users had to pay before they could access any content? What choices would provide the foundation for a successful business model?

SERVICE STRATEGYNumber of Free Articles

The limit of free articles is presently 20 articles which should be cut down to at least 15 because 20 article in a month is not a small number. Moreover, the growth of paid digital subscriber to The Times has been slowed down in Quarter 4 of 2011(Exhibit 12) hence to maintain the profitability of the business model and to gain value from loyal and interested customers limit should be bring down to at least 15 articles.

PricingExhibit 11 shows that “The New York Times” has highest annual subscription fees for online content (more than $450) almost double than what “The Wall Street Journal” charges. Therefore the company should considerably lower there rates and offer competitive price so that more and more people can join the service which will increase the site traffic and hence the company can demand more fees from advertiser.

“Leaky” Paywall or “Bullet-Proof” Paywall Model ?I think “Leaky” Paywall is unfair because it is giving free access to people logging in from social media websites like facebook and twitter. Also people who are coming from Google sites are allowed free limit of 5 articles per day over and above the monthly limit of 20 articles per day (Page no. 6). Through its new paywall system The New York Times want to generate subscription revenue from loyal customers but this “Leaky” wall system will ultimately discourage them from subscribing to the site. Hence the company should follow “Bullet-Proof” paywall model which did not permit any user who had not registered to have access to any article.

Is Online (Digital) Newspaper or Print Newspaper complement or substitute ?We cannot say that online newspapers have totally substituted print newspaper rather it is more of complementary nature. The fact that some online newspaper readers, especially the younger readers, do not read the printed edition cannot deny that the amount of information traditional print newspapers provide is incomparable. What catches the eye is that online newspaper readers believe that a printed newspaper always fulfils the need for information better than the online version, in all domains. (Source: Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 30 (2005), 5572)