Billionaire Carlos Slim seems to be using his financial might to help the New York Times stop dragging its feet on whether to start charging readers for online access to the Times.
The Mexican mega-investor — the Times’ largest individual shareholder — set off a loud buzz all weekend after proclaiming on TV he’s in favor of dumping the newspaper’s policy of free online access because the bold act “will be successful at the end of the day.”
The surprise public debut of Slim’s investor role at the paper came Friday in a CNBC interview — and by early yesterday, leaks from Times sources said the company was at last ready to make its long-awaited decision about seeking online revenue — possibly by early springtime.
Paying for online content has been a touchy subject for the Sulzberger family, which controls the Times. Many newspapers are studying ways to adopt a pay model similar to the one used successfully for years by The Wall Street Journal. Under that system, non-subscribers get a headline and a tease, while subscribers get the story, as well as additional features and graphics.
Blogs over the weekend speculated that the Times was leaning toward a “metered” pay system, which lets users sample content before being asked to pay for it.
New York magazine’s blog first reported yesterday that the Sulzbergers were nearing a decision to end more than a year of bitter debate and agonizing among family members and managers alike.
Citing “people familiar with internal deliberations,” the magazine said it appeared the paper would opt for a metered system.
The blog quoted “a friend of Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger” as saying a final decision could come within days while a senior newsroom source said the plan could be announced “in a matter of weeks.”
Slim owns nearly 7 percent of the Times common shares outright, and upon the exercise of his separate warrants, controls a total 16.3 percent.
New York’s report also quoted a source as saying the Times had decided not to partner with Journalism Online, a start-up run by Steve Brill and former Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz. The Times had no comment on the reports.
The magazine also said Apple’s tablet computer, which is expected to launch Jan. 27, could strike a content partnership with the Sulzberger family so that the Apple tablet could dovetail with a pay strategy.