Who Will Control the Cost of the NYT On Digital Readers? 217
RobotRunAmok writes "Ryan Tate, at Gawker, describes the 'heated turf war' waging at the New York Times. The print and digital divisions have differing views over how much a subscription to the Gray Lady (iPad edition) should cost. The print troops believe $20-$30 monthly is the proper price point (fearing that setting the mark any lower will jeopardize print distribution), while the digital soldiers are digging in their heels at $10 a month. The Kindle version is already managed by the Print Army, so don't count on logic necessarily driving any decisions here. It's complicated: the Web version of the paper is still free through 2011, and the computer 'Times Reader' has already been released and priced at $14.95 monthly."
Re:Different Prices? (Score:2, Informative)
This way it looks like if you want NYT available to you in all formats you would need to fork over ($10-$30)+Free+$14.95+(whatever they charge for paper)= [lots of money]
If you're already a print subscriber, you get the Times Reader ($14.95 a month) free, as part of your subscription. I'm not sure if that carries over to their Kindle edition, or if it would carry over to the iPad edition.
Re:Walled gardens (Score:3, Informative)
Look at some of the less expensive "no name" eReaders out there. They don't look quite as nice as the big boys (Sony, Amazon, B&N, etc), but you can put whatever you want on them. Here are some good options:
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=782&Tpk=ereader [newegg.com]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16858653001 [newegg.com]
Re:Business model fundamentally broken (Score:5, Informative)
Nonsense (Score:1, Informative)
It didn't drop at all. The price is at the still artificial high.
That statement is factually untrue. [doe.gov]
Gas prices have been set by the real market. Even in California after Enron.
Re:Watch that price, NYT (Score:5, Informative)
I find it a bit hard to believe that the daily cost of presses, press staff and press consumables is equal to or less than the daily cost of web servers. Do you have any numbers to back up your claim? After all, the computers that the advertising, journalism and production staff use are there whether or not you are printing on paper.
This guy [howstuffworks.com] says that the cost of printing the New York times is of the order of US$500 million per year. That seems pretty unbelievable too but if true would amount to something like US$1.4 million per day. I looked at the financial statement of the New York times where they list the cost of raw materials for 2006, 2005 and 2004 as (millions US$ per year) 331, 321 and 297.
This site [metafilter.com] suggests daily paper costs for the New York Times to be about 1/10 of the above estimate. Based on the financial report this is just wrong.
US$1 million per day would run a hell of a server room.
Re:Watch that price, NYT (Score:2, Informative)
>>>Today newspapers should be about the insightful commentary, bringing together of sources and unique investigative journalism.
Go here: http://www.glennbeckclips.com/02-18-10.htm [glennbeckclips.com] [glennbeckclips.com] (or simply glennbeckclips.com if that link is broke) and watch Segments 3 and 4, and tell me they are not insightful, or at least educational, in regards to our debt situation.
On the liberal side Rachel Maddow has similar investigative/educational segments. Why would I pay New York Times or any other newspaper ~$400 a year when I can get pretty much the same info for FREE from television or radio?
>>>had to resort to publications from the federal reserve
Oh yeah. They are trustworthy. (rolls eyes). There's a reason Congress wants to audit them as soon as possible. The Fed officers are NOT trustworthy, or unbiased. (There really is no such thing as unbiased reporting, so you're basically wasting time looking for a holy grail that doesn't exist.)