Marketing 466

Professors Julie Hennessy and Tim Calkins

Summer Quarter 2016
Written Assignment
New York Times Paywall
Due Date: July 29, 2016
The New York Times organization faces some critical issues as it looks to the
future. Your goal is to
Assess the first 9 months of the Paywall experiment
Recommend whether to continue or discontinue the program, and
Suggest any changes that you would make in execution given your
strategic recommendation
In this assignment, assume that you are part of an independent strategy group
within the NYT organization. You are not the designer or the executor of the
Paywall strategy, but you have been brought in as an objective third party to take
a look at the results which are available at the end of 2011, 9 months after the
Paywall launch.
1.

Restate the objective of the NYT Paywall as

you see it Focusing on digital circulation of the news content to target an
expansion in the digital subscriber base to 400,000 readers within the next one
year.

2. Thoroughly analyze the results of the Paywall from March 2011 to the end of the
year. While it is early to draw complete conclusions, what have you learned so
far? What indications are encouraging? What are your watch-outs? What can
we not know yet at all? As you do this, include consideration of the following
questions:
a.
What impact is the Paywall having on
the audience size (subscription base) for NYT Digital Access and for NYT
overall. How much of digital growth is is being sourced from Print
subscribers?
b.
How is advertising volume (print and
digital) holding up?
c.
Have we got the number of free articles
(20) on the basic Paywall set correctly?
d.
How do you feel about the current
leaky paywall design? (allowing ways around the Paywall depending how
consumers access the content) Is this a good or bad idea?

e.

What can we learn so far from this

experiment (compared to past experiments (NYT Select) and other papers
experiments) about the conditions for successful Paywalls?

3.

What do you think about the Paywall

strategy as a short-term and a long-term business model for the New York
Times? Would you continue or terminate the experiment at this time?

4.

What, if any, adjustments would you make

in the strategy / execution based on the learnings from the first 9 months of the
Paywall experiment? If you choose to discontinue the Paywall, what would your
replacement strategy look like?

Your analysis should not exceed 800 words. Exhibits detailing your data analysis,
the conclusions from the analysis, and the assumptions you have made may be
useful necessary. These exhibits do not have to be included in the 800 word count
maximum.