Media strategies: charging for archived material seen as counterproductive by New York Times, program ended

Americana: Streets of New York
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Two years ago the New York Times began charging for access to its archives. Today it declared an end to the program.

"What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYtimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” Ms. Schiller said."

How long until Gannett, parent company to the Shreveport Times, will emulate this policy?