New York Times Running On Fumes

I wonder how much their situation would improve by opening up their archive for free and removing the registration stuff? They'd get vastly more page views, and thus more ad revenue.<p>For that matter, if they do go down, what happens to the archive? I hope that something like Wikimedia or the Internet Archive gets access to it, so all that information isn't lost forever.

I use to work for a newspaper. At the time (might show my age here) newspapers were switching from traditional cut and paste/film-plate production to digital composition. I had to push and push just get the newspaper to think about stopping the use of knives to cut and paste content and start using digital layouts. The management basically refused to change. Being inside the industry I know they saw the digital age coming - and even though they knew it was inevitable - just like the Trains business of yesterday that didn't realize that they were transportation companies not just train companies - newspapers took to long to understand that they are more than print. From my point of view newspapers should have lead the drive to the online content world instead they stuck to their print... Like I've heard before - its easier to kill a business than it is to fix it.

They should sell their presses and go to a Print on demand model. They could have special NYT dispensers at kiosks that allow you to choose which stories you want to read and makes a custom newspaper with ads targeted to match for each patron. Then over time it should learn each readers tastes and recommend stories. Google news for the unwired world. Vendors would rent the specialized printing machines from NYT for the privileged of being able to sell the worlds premier news paper.

I've been fascinated by this question for a while, and my interest has been piqued since hearing the Technology in Journalism session presentation at DjangoCon.<p>I can think of so many ways that newspapers could monetize their content online, but they really don't seem to get it. Newspapers have tons of great long tail content that can be mined and monetized. They just don't know what is possible and what can be done.

They wont go bankrupt. They are the closest thing to the worlds premier newspaper. If the company was distressed they could sell it in a heartbeat.<p>Even if it ran at a loss it still has value due to its prestige. Newscorp recently bought the WSJ for 6B when it was in a similar predicament.

This is sad news, even more so since NYT is likely to be rated as junk by Moody's... There aren't many ways out of this kind of mess.<p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2345888020081023" rel="nofollow">http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN23458880200810...</a>

Alright, time to strap on some plums. Dump the print division entirely, get rid of registration for the front page articles, and start charging for premium content.

Seems like something Google should actually buy for the content-making-people. Maybe there's just too much debt though, and they can just hire the people directly.

"Mediasaurus" by Michael Crichton. Google it.

I don't understand the business, it shouldn't take more than 50 writers to write a paper, pay them 100k , that's 5mm sell 500k subcriptions at 50/yr that's 25mm<p>And that's not counting ads (or printing cost) perhaps they cancel out though

Serves them right for covering up the illegal wiretapping story to help Bush win reelection. The sooner they are out of business the better. I personally prefer to get my news from sources that don't conspire with the government to promote genocide and the erosion of civil liberties.