The New York Times creates unit for electronic editions

Posted by Elizabeth Redman on January 26, 2010 at 12:47 PM

As speculation mounts about the expected launch of the Apple tablet computer, The New York Times has announced that it will create a new business unit dedicated to electronic editions.

Yasmin Namini, currently the senior vice president of marketing and circulation, has been appointed head of the new Reader Applications division. This unit will be part of the Media Group, joining the newspaper, the website, the International Herald Tribune and News Services.

New York Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy wrote in an internal memo that "this new fifth segment will give an operational and financial home to the products that offer a digital reading experience similar to the print platform".

The Times currently offers electronic editions for the Kindle, the Sony Reader and the Barnes and Noble Nook, as well as its website and free iPhone application. "Recent and expected growth support a change to view them collectively as a profit generating business," Heekin-Canedy wrote.

This announcement comes as the newspaper tries to monetise its other digital offerings. It has just announced that it will charge for access to its website from 2011, implementing a metered system that will allow users to read a specified number of articles for free per month, and then prompt them to subscribe. This has prompted a flurry of speculation within the industry as to whether this will save the newspaper or turn off readers, particularly considering that the web audience for the Times has fallen 18% year-on-year, according to the December figures.

The elephant in the room, of course, is the new Apple tablet computer, expected to launch this week and to deliver newspapers and magazines onto a full-colour touch screen, unlike other e-readers such as the Kindle. Heekin-Canedy doesn't mention the device in his memo. "This is probably the first corporate re-organization motivated by an external product that doesn't officially exist," wrote Ryan Tate at Gawker.

Sources: Bloomberg, The New York Observer, Gawker