• Portfolio, Wednesday, March 11, 2009 9:31 AM

Martin Nisenholtz, New York Times Co. digital chief, says that newspaper competitors working together on a cooperative news outlet is a real possibility as the industry struggles.

In the paper's "Talk to the Newsroom" series, a reader asks whether newspapers have considered forming a cooperative news site where people would have to pay a monthly subscription fee to access the papers' articles. Nisenholtz says such a plan is possible--"particularly as more publishers question the advertising-only model. I can easily imagine such a venture taking shape among many newspapers."

As for charging money for content on the NYT's site, that sounds less likely. Nisenholtz says the NYT is studying how paid content can add to the core ad business, "but the trick is to garner incremental revenue from the user without significantly cannibalizing the high-rate ad pages that now account for a very significant amount of money."

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