Finally, we see some numbers for TimesSelect, the New York Times’ subscription-only online content. Howie
Kurtz
reports this morning that the Times has
sold 135,000 subscriptions at $50 each. Plenty of folks have howled
about the Times killing its op-ed writers’ relevancy with
this move, but it appears they’re paying their salaries well. The
free content/paid advertising model really isn’t sustainable unless
your traffic is incredibly high. Even destinations like the
Washington Post website have trouble
meeting those numbers and run their web operations at a loss.