Will Dowd and Co survive NYT metered access?

Having dithered for a year over whether to charge readers again for access to the New York Times online, it looks as if publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr is going to take the leap, despite the commercial and editorial risks.

The word from New York is that the paper will in the next few days announce a "pay as you read" metered access system similar to that of the Financial Times, rather than the straight "pay wall" favoured by the Wall Street Journal and with which the NYT itself experimented back in 2005.

Under that system, readers were asked to pay $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year to read certain "high-end" content – mainly columnists and guest writers. But out of 13m readers, only 225,000 or so subscribed. Columnists like Maureen Dowd and Tom Friedman were deeply upset to see their readership fall like a stone and the project was dropped in September 2007 in favour of a big readership/big ad revenue model.

But with the economy stagnating, there is not enough ad revenue around. The appeal of the metered access is that it preserves the paper’s reach: heavy duty readers pay up while casual browsers can still sample articles for free.

The timing of an announcement is thought to be critical: there is considerable speculation that the Times has struck a deal with Apple, allowing Times content to be read on the much-heralded 'tablet' computer or 'iSlate' – it has no formal name yet -  expected to be launched on January 27.

Will those high-profile columnists be safe under the new system if it comes? According to New York magazine’s Daily Intel blog, Tom Friedman said recently of the 2005-2007 pay wall era, "What was coming to me anecdotally from my travels was the five worst words that as a columnist you ever want to hear: 'I used to read you before you went behind the wall.'"

Friedman now accepts that some sort of pay model has to be introduced, but adds: "I'm glad I had this job at this time. It was great working at the paper when it was on dead trees and could pay for itself." ·