As The New York Times nears half-a-million subscribers, it cuts free articles to 10 per month

We first brought news of the New York Times’ content falling behind a paywall just prior to launch last March. And one year after the launch of its digital subscription model, it has announced that it has racked up almost half-a-million paid digital subscribers.

As of Sunday past, The New York Times said it had around 454,000 paid subscribers to its various digital packages, e-readers and replica editions of The New York Times, as well as the International Herald Tribune (IHT).

It’s also looking to cut back on the free articles it gives readers access to. Starting in April, its NYTimes.com paywall will only give you access to ten free articles a month, down from twenty.

“Last year was a transformative one for The Times as we began to charge for digital access to our content,” says Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman and CEO of the prestigious title. “Today, close to a half million people are now paying for digital content from The Times and the IHT. We knew that readers placed a high value on our journalism, and we anticipated they would respond positively to our digital subscription packages. Our commitment to all of our subscribers, both print and digital, is that we will continue to invest in and evolve our journalism and our products, and we will remain a source of trustworthy news, information and high-quality opinion for many years to come.”

So, as of next month, all users of NYTimes.com will be able to access ten less articles a month, (including slideshows, videos and other forms of content), and beyond this users will be asked to become digital subscribers. You can read more about its digital subscription options here.

Readers who arrive at Times articles through links from e-mail, search, blogs and social media will continue to be able to access those individual articles, even if they have reached their reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of five free links to Times articles.

On The Times’s mobile apps, the Top News sections will remain free, though to delve deeper into the apps’ other sections, users will also be asked to become digital subscribers.

Despite readers trying to find ways around the paywall, overall it has been a pretty successful year for The New York times in terms of monetizing its digital content. This success has been echoed in the UK too, where a couple of weeks back we reported that the Financial Times’ revenue from paid-for content is on course to usurp revenue gleaned from advertising this year.