TimesSelect Free Sample: Who Sampled Whom?

A week ago, Phillips sponsored a TimesSelect open house. The locked-away pay NYT columnists were accessible to all.

Mickeleh's Take: Was this a chance for the public to sample the tasty goodness of premium product? Or for the New York Times to sample the advertising impact of a bigger audience? I guess the Times was betting on the former and hoping for more of us to send them the fifty bucks. But cheapskate me is hoping for the latter.

From the Department of Irony: On November 4, the print edition of The Times carried a "What's Online" column by Dan Mitchell, discussing the overall state of the newspaper industry: 2.8 percent drop in daily circulation for the past six months. On the upside, he cited a study from the Newspaper Association of America reporting an 8 percent jump in online readership (Feb 2005 - Mar 2006). Quoth Dan, "But the study does not mention that newspapers still haven't figured out how to make a healthy profit from Internet readership.... many sites force readers to register, which Internet types say is counterproductive, when those readrs can so easily go elsewhere for their news." He left unsaid that some newspapers (his own for instance) charge subscription fees for some content. If you've paid your fees, you can read "What's Online" online. If not you can read an abstract here.

(Tags: NYT, New York Times, NY Times)