“We will stop printing,” says publisher, “date TBD”
Maybe this was obvious, but the publisher of the New York Times has nonetheless sent a shock wave through the media industry by predicting the demise of the print version of the grey old lady. Arthur Sulzberger didn’t pin a date to that momentous change, though reports have suggested it could happen within five years. He was speaking at a media conference in London, where the economics of print publishing in the digital age has been front and centre, along with the Times‘s plan to set up a pay wall for its online edition within the next year. “We believe that serious media organisations must start to collect additional revenue from their readers,” Sulzberger told the crowd, adding: “information is less and less yearning to be free.” When asked about rumours the Times would go entirely digital by 2015, he said: “We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD.”