The New York Times is planning to start charging for access to its website in a controversial move to make up for declining advertising revenues at its print newspaper, dpa quoted Bloomberg News as reporting today. Subscribers to the print edition would be charged 2.50 dollars per month to access NYTimes.com, while non-subscribers would be charged 5 dollars a month. The paper ran a survey to see how much its readers would be willing to pay for online content and could take the decision to start charging for online news within three to four weeks. The New York Times move could jump-start efforts by other media groups to start charging for online content, analysts say, even though it is unclear whether enough users will be willing to start paying to read the articles they have been getting for free until now. The paper did try to charge readers for access to premium content like opinion pieces and editorials, but halted the programme in 2007, even though at its peak 200,000 users paid for the service, generating 10 million dollars a year in revenue for the Times company, according to Bloomberg.
