• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 10, 2009

In its ongoing quest to save itself from financial peril, it was reported Thursday that The New York Times is considering charging a monthly fee of $5 for online access to the paper. It sent out a survey to subscribers asking if they'd be willing to pay $2.50 a month, or a 50% discount for existing customers, to access NYTimes.com.

The newspaper previously experimented with charging for online content several years ago via its Times Select service, which put its columnists behind a pay wall and brought in about $10 million a year before being abandoned in 2007. Its Times Reader software offers an offline electronic version of the paper and is free to print subscribers but otherwise costs $14.95 a month.

What about The Times iPhone app? Free. That's not surprising given that most iPhone apps are distributed free, and ad-supported like the Times' app, or simply as a promotional vehicle. But the App Store provides another digital platform for the newspaper to test new payment models if that's the direction it's headed.

USA Today Publisher David Hunke last month told the AP that he regrets the newspaper didn't start by charging for it's iPhone app. Like The Times and all other newspapers, USA Today is struggling with how to make up for rapidly declining print revenue. Hunke didn't specify how many downloads the USA Today app has had, but added, "I'm not sure we realized what we had," he said. "I think that's a value readers will be willing to pay for."

Interestingly, the App Store offers both USA Today and New York Times branded crossword puzzle apps, at $4.99 and $5.99 respectively. USA Today also offers a separate puzzle game for 99 cents. It wouldn't be surprising to see The Times use that as a starting point to sell other types of specialized content, like an app version of Times Select or other material not offered in the free edition.

Unlike the Web, the App Store and other mobile storefronts aren't places where people are expecting everything to be free. So getting consumers to start paying for apps might not be as hard as convincing them to pay $5 a month for the Times online.