• September 18, 2007

Acknowledging that the practice was limiting its ability to generate the ad revenue possible from a fully free site, The New York Times said it will discontinue its TimesSelect program, which charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to columnists' work and the newspaper's archives.

The change takes effect at midnight Tuesday night.

The newspaper said the two-year-old TimesSelect project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers--out of 787,000 overall--and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

"But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising," said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.

The Times said it will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.