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.
