What if everyone read the New York Times exclusively online?

Posted by John Burke on April 5, 2006 at 6:00 PM

At Slate, Jack Shafer has rave reviews for the New York Times website redesign, positive enough that he has decided to cancel his subscription to the print paper. The site, according to Shafer, resembles a newspaper more closely and with its new features, goes well beyond the print paper which will make his transition to purely online easier. But what if every print subscriber had the same feeling?

Before the site's new look appeared, co-founder of the online financial site thestreet.com James J. Cramer wrote in New York Magazine that the Times should just get it over with and get rid of the print version altogether: "The Sulzbergers know what has to happen. Why delay the inevitable?"

But what would actually happen if the Times were to drop its print edition or worse still, its subscribers brought about its demise first by canceling their subs?

NYT claims about a million print subscribers. At around $620 a year per subscriber, that's $620 million dollars it would lose in either situation.

Nytimes.com has about 12 million unique visitors. What if each one of them dished out the $50 dollars for TimesSelect? It would result in only $600 million in revenue.

But seeing as by last count in January there were only 156,000 paying subscribers to TimesSelect... well, let's just hope that not everyone follows Shafer's example.

Sources: Slate, New York Magazine

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