Shortly before the new year, New York Times home subscribers received a letter with their Sunday paper announcing that the company would be raising its prices in 2012. The letter explained that this was the first price increase in two-and-a-half years and that it was “necessary for [the Times] to keep up with the cost of providing the nation’s most honored journalism.” The price hike is also an attempt to offset a decline in revenue by increasing circulation revenue – a strategy the Times has employed for a few years now.
While some New York Times faithfuls will continue to subscribe or pick up the paper with their morning coffee, others cite the poor economy and access to digital papers as reasons for dropping the Times in 2012.
According to the Poynter Institute, New York Times home subscribers now pay between 30 and 60 cents more than they did in 2011. And weekday newsstand prices are up 25 percent, from $2.00 in 2011 to $2.50 in 2012.
“The fact that the company had the audacity to raise prices during one of the worst economic recessions and as alternative reading options were popping up left and right really turned me off,” said David Bakke, editor of Money Crashers Personal Finance and a former New York Times subscriber, in an email interview. “It’s probably the worst thing they could have done.”
The company instituted a paywall just last year, which allows readers to view their first 20 articles a month online for free, and then offers three digital subscription options for access to the website, phone applications and iPad apps. Bakke said frankly, he can fulfill his news needs elsewhere – namely on free news sites. “I just can’t rationalize paying for something that I can get for free,” he said in an email interview.
And he’s not alone. Dr. Drew Stevens of Missouri dropped his subscription after seven years. “The proliferation of the Internet enables me to obtain news more quickly than other journalists, and I find their stories redundant,” he said of the Times in an email interview.
Despite some subscribers’ decision to opt out, Poynter Institute business analyst Rick Edmonds said it’s too early to make any judgments about whether or not this decision from the Times represents a smart business move. But Edmonds said he has a feeling the Times’ longstanding “high quality, high value, high price” attitude will not negatively affect the company. In other words, the people who could afford to pay for the Times – one of the priciest papers in the nation – in 2011 will still be able to foot the bill in 2012. “Overall, they have a high enough demographic that people can afford it,” Edmonds said in an email interview.
And while some prefer to surf the Internet for free alternatives, digital options are nothing new, Edmonds noted. “It’s all kind of gradual,” he said. “They’ve had this competition for a number of years.” Something else the 160-year-old paper has going for it: loyalty.
Layla Morgan Wilde of Westchester, N.Y., said her husband has been a home subscriber for over a decade now; longer than the two have been married. “He’ll divorce me before he cancels his subscription,” Wilde said in an email interview.
And Christine Najac of South Florida said she’ll renew the New York Times subscription that she has given to her parents as a Christmas gift for the past two years. “They have their Sunday routine revolving around the paper,” said Najac. “For this reason alone I will not cancel the subscription.”
So Najac said she was confused when she received an email from the Times on Dec. 28 offering a special discount if she would reconsider her decision to drop the home delivery service.
The deal offered an exclusive 50 percent discount off of 16 weeks. However, the deeply reduced rate was not intended for continuing subscribers like Najac, but for some 300 customers who had already canceled their subscription. Eight million people received the email.
Social media quickly exploded with reports that The New York Times had been hacked and the company instructed customers to ignore the email. The Times later revealed that an employee had inadvertently sent the email to a list of millions of addresses in the company’s database.
Although Najac said a customer service representative with the Times told her the company would not honor the discount for continuing subscribers who had mistakenly received the email, the New York Times’ website offers 50 percent off home delivery subscriptions to new subscribers.
Only a month into 2012, it’s too soon to tell whether the price increase will hurt the company’s circulation revenue. But so far, despite the higher prices and an embarrassing mistake, the Times has managed to hold on to at least some of its loyal, and not to mention well-paying, customers.
— Cara Hedgepeth
Related articles
- The New York Times increases its price by 50 cents (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- New York Times sends email to millions by mistake (reuters.com)
- New York Times Accidentally Emails 9 Million People, Promises It Isn’t Spam (inquisitr.com)
- The New York Times Has a Weiner Moment (foxnews.com)
- New York Times subscribers hit by email spam attack (technolog.msnbc.msn.com)
