New York Times halves number of free monthly articles

Starting from today (8 Dec), The New York Times is making a change to its paywall for the first time in five years, halving the number of free articles per month from ten to five.

The decision follows an increase in demand for quality journalism after Trump’s rise to power and Hollywood sexual harassment scandals, which has contributed to a 60% increase, year-on-year, in Times subscriptions, and 14% in digital-only subscriptions.

According to a report in Bloomberg, Meredith Kopit Levien, the New York Time’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said this was the right moment to experiment with giving away less online content for free, and “demonstrate to people that high-quality journalism is something to be paid for.”

The publisher has also recently introduced a limit to the number of free articles accessed via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, whereas previously they did not count towards the paywall.

As Facebook and Google increase their share of the online advertising market, other publications such as The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal have also been tightening their paywalls in an attempt to persuade readers to pay for quality journalism.