INEVITABLE

NYT Site Traffic Drops with Paywall

Pageviews down 11 to 30 percent.

The New York Times paywall finally went live on March 28—but how much did that stop its most avid consumers? A comparison of total visits to NYTimes.com for a 12-day period before the launch of the paywall and a 12-day period after the launch found that there was a decrease of between 5 percent and 15 percent in overall visits. There was one bright spot: On April 9, there was an increase of 7 percent, as people searched for news about the government shutdown and budget discussions. However, the decrease in total page views was even more pronounced, with a decline of between 11 percent and 30 percent for the 12 days following the launch. The paywall limits online readers to 20 articles per month, unless they have a subscription. Those with smartphone applications continue to get the top news section for free, but all other sections require a subscription.