In mid-September the New York Times removed some of its popular columnists from the OA edition. The purpose was to increase revenue, and it worked in the sense that many readers were willing to pay for online access to the columnists. However, many readers were not, and the impact of the columnists started to decline. The decline was already evident in October (blogged here 10/14/05). Now Independent Sourcescites November data to show that their impact continues to decline.
Mickey Kaus calculates that the increase in NYT revenue is about $6.1 million and wonders whether it was worth it. He asks a good question: if a rich conservative offered the paper $6.1 million to reduce the impact of its liberal columnists, would it have taken the offer? (Thanks to Joho via Darius Cuplinskas.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/12/2005 03:20:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
