New York Times mulls premium access for mobile news

New York Times senior vice president of digital operations Martin Nisenholtz indicates the publisher is likely to begin charging users a premium fee to access its news coverage on mobile devices, contending the mobile platform offers fewer opportunities for advertising revenues than the web. "Mobile offers a better opportunity for paid content," Nisenholtz said in an interview with Bloomberg News. "For publishers to offer their content for free in the mobile platform forever without getting paid very much money, I don't think it's going to be tenable." According to Nisenholtz, The New York Times is presently exploring different alternatives to monetize some of its news content online as advertising sales and circulation continue to plunge--its ad revenue fell 27 percent during the first quarter, with a similar drop expected in Q2.

For now, The New York Times remains available for free on Apple's iPhone. In a recent interview, USA Today publisher David Hunke told the Associated Press he regrets the decision to make the newspaper's iPhone news application available for free. "I'm not sure we realized what we had," Hunke said. "I think that's a value readers will be willing to pay for."

For more on the New York Times' mobile future:
- read this MarketWatch article

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