From the Dept of “How to kill your business in little or no time flat…” – NYT considering fee to access content

I can almost guarantee that this will kill the New York Times, if they go through with this:

July 9 (Bloomberg) — New York Times Co. said in a survey of print subscribers that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site.

Times Co. also asked whether subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site, in the poll confirmed today by Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free.

Times Co. is contemplating additional sources of revenue as marketers slow spending on the Internet. Ad sales at the publisher’s sites, also including about.com and boston.com, fell 8 percent and 3.5 percent in the first quarter and fourth quarter of 2008 respectively. They gained 6.5 percent last year.

“The question here for consumers is the psychological barrier of now paying when you were getting it for free before, and you’re going to lose some readers as a result,” said Ken Doctor, an analyst at Outsell Inc. in Burlingame, California. “The New York Times will also have to evaluate what this means for ad rates as they lose readers.”

Times Co., based in New York, lost 11 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $4.80 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 35 percent this year.

The New York Times had an average of 647,695 weekday home delivery subscribers as of the 26 weeks ended March 29, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations data. That doesn’t include single-copy sales or third-party sales. Its site is the most visited among news sites, according to ComScore Inc. data.

via New York Times Considers $5 Monthly Web-Access Fee (Update2) – Bloomberg.com.

Here is why I believe that this will be a business killer for the New York Times. Quite simply put; people are just not going to pay for content that they can access elsewhere. Sure, the locals will pay to access to the local related content; but all the National News stuff usually comes from the AP or Reuters; and people just are not going to pay for it, when they can get it for free elsewhere.

The reason the New York Times  is hurting for revenue is two fold. One; is the economy, people just are not spending the extra money to buy papers and Businesses are tightening their belts due to losing in the Stock Markets and because of the major recession. Secondly; it is because of the liberal slant of the paper. The average person is just not as far left as the New York Times. People want honesty and integrity; and the New York Times, along with the rest of the Liberal media went into the tank for President Obama. It worked for a little while, but people have begun to see, that they were being sold a bag of lemons and are now waking up to the fact that President Obama is more of the same in Washington D.C.

This is especially true on the far, far, left. The Iraq War still continues, and this after Obama promised to end the war. The Gay community sees President Obama as a enemy to their cause. President Obama’s poll numbers are a reflection of this. As you might already know, his poll numbers took a major dip; especially in Ohio. This could come back haunt him come 2012, if he runs again. It also could be a indication of things to come in 2010.

Either way, this idea, like the one that Rupert Murdoch proposed doing with the New York Post, will be a business killer. Hopefully, these knuckleheads wise up and don’t follow this plan of disaster.

Others: MoJo Blog Posts, DailyFinance, Mashable!, Mediaite, Silicon Alley Insider, Gawker, The New Republic and MediaMemo