New York Times to charge for news on website

The New York Times will make people pay for articles online starting next year, marking a big move by a prominent newspaper to find ways to survive on the Web as print subscriptions and advertising sales fall. The New York Times Co said on Wednesday that it would use a "metered model," charging readers for access after they read a certain number of articles in a month. People who get the paper delivered at home would get free access to the website. "This process of rethinking our business model has also been driven by our desire to achieve additional revenue diversity that will make us less susceptible to the inevitable economic cycles," Chief Executive Janet Robinson said in a statement. The New York Times, which has experimented with charging for Web content, provided little detail on its latest plan. But on the face of it, the proposed model appears similar to what the Financial Times does on its website. "It's a big deal for the industry because the question that's been out there for a year or more is whether the general news, the mass news publishers would go in a paid-content direction," said Rob Grimshaw, the FT.com's managing director.