Here’s a challenge for those who consider themselves web-savvy: tell me the
weekly home delivery rates for the New York Times. If you can’t do that, then
give me the weekly home delivery rates for any other newspaper, along with a
link to the page where they’re listed.
I have something of an advantage, in that I already get home delivery of the
New York Times, which means that I have a login to various bits of the website
which require a username and password to see. But still I can’t find
a page anywhere with the rates on it. Of course, it’s easy to find introductory
rates for the first 12 weeks of a subscription, but there’s no indication of
what the rates will be thereafter.
The only page I can find is this
one, which tells us that home delivery rates went up from $4.25 per week
in 1989 to $4.50 per week in 1990. Using the Minneapolis Fed’s inflation
calculator, we can determine that $4.50 in 1990 is equivalent, in real terms,
to $6.97 today. On the other hand, in 1990 the New York Times had much less
competition, and no one was getting their news off the internet for free –
which meant that the Times could basically, as a monopoly, charge whatever it
wanted. Today, anybody who gives up a subscription can get 95% of the same content
for free, and the other 5% for $49.95 per year, or just under a dollar per week.
So one might expect that the price of home delivery would have gone down.
But one would be wrong. It hasn’t gone down in nominal terms, and it hasn’t
gone down even in real terms. In fact, according to a slip of paper which fell
out of my newspaper today, the price for weekly delivery of the New York Times
is now going up to $9.90 – which works out to $515 per year. That’s an
increase of 42%, in real terms, since 1990.
Obviously, the Times is a little bit embarrassed by this, since it reveals
its rates nowhere on its website. $515 per year is a lot of money, and I think
that many Times subscribers might be shocked at how much they’re paying on an
annual basis, if they ever bothered to work it out. (One cute little trick the
Times has which makes the rate seem a little cheaper: it bills every four weeks,
rather than every month.) But I have a more theoretical question, now that I’m
what kind of economic theory would predict rising real prices in a period of
vastly increased competition?
I believe there is a reason for this– the subscription/delivery cost varies where you are ordering from.
I’m ordering from New York City — the cheapest place for NYT delivery.
The NYT policy sounds rational to me and still reasonably priced. What do you think is the demand elasticity for subscriptions? I guess it is quite low. Maybe you should also be asking why subscriptions were so cheap before (easier access to print advertising and so more advertising revenue per extra copy sold?). And maybe the NYT makes so much money from web advertising that they do not want to subsidize print subscriptions.
For comparison I have just taken out a (free) trial subscription to the FT. Their rate for home delivery in London is ߣ6.20 per week, with delivery guaranteed by 7.00 am; or you can get it for ߣ4 with vouchers and no delivery and (if you wish) pay for delivery by a newsagent. FT.com then costs a further ߣ1 per week.
I guess I am not quite clear on the problem.
The basic product — 52 Sunday issues (52 x $2.00=$104) and 313 daily issues (313 x 50 cts= $156.50) — (of course I may be way off on the newstand prices in NYC) gives us a total street price of $260.50.
So delivery costs are about $255/year ($515-$260) or about 70 cts/day. Did I get the arithmetic right?
Sounds fair to me for the convenience — and I guess you think so too or else you wouldn’t be paying it. No?
Present for you:
http://tinyurl.com/y62u8y
Aha! Thanks! So the big rise was over the course of the 1990s — although the price has still gone up by 24% in nominal terms and 8% in real terms since 2001.
Newsagents in Australia – small business owners who deliver newspapers and run retail businesses selling newspapers and magazines – get between 50 cents and 70 cents a week for a seven day home delivery of a newspaper. We’ve had one increase in ten years. We are worse off today in real terms than ten years ago yet wages, fuel and other costs have risen in real terms.
Newsagents in Australia – small business owners who deliver newspapers and run retail businesses selling newspapers and magazines – get between 50 cents and 70 cents a week for a seven day home delivery of a newspaper. We’ve had one increase in ten years. We are worse off today in real terms than ten years ago yet wages, fuel and other costs have risen in real terms.
just a quick note:
I tried using the “site:” advanced search operator within google to find the information you are looking for. I couldnt find it but, nonetheless, the “site:” command can prove to be very useful when searching a website with a large amount of indexed pages, e.g., nytimes.com . Essentially, this command will search every page, on the domain “www.nytimes.com”, that Google has indexed.
to use, type into google search:
“text searching for” + “(blank_space)” + “site:” + “www.site.com”
For Example:
“newspaper prices site:www.nytimes.com”
(copy text inside quotes – not quotes themselves)
I never thought about the charges involved in the delivery of newspaper to home. Really, you are a great Finance professional. The calculations, comparisons, percentages…everything you have done on this subject. Nice Article, thanks!
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Beth W.
New York Immigration Lawyer Marina Shepelsky, located in Brooklyn, assists clients from the New York metro area and across the United States in all immigration and naturalization matters.
I’m much satisfied with subscription…
According to the NY Times website:
Receive The New York Times for just $6.70 a week for 12 weeks when you pay by credit card (8 weeks if you choose to be billed). After your introductory period, home delivery will continue at the regular price of $13.40 a week.
According to the NY Times website:
Receive The New York Times for just $6.70 a week for 12 weeks when you pay by credit card (8 weeks if you choose to be billed). After your introductory period, home delivery will continue at the regular price of $13.40 a week.
We provide the cheap and best newspaper home delivery services.We provide the best services regarding wrapped newspapers and flat wrapped newspapers.
Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com
Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.
http://www.onlineuniversalwork.com
I think that everyone forgets the independent contractor/carrier. Here in El Paso they are paid between .07000 and 09500 cents per paper. The carrier is also charged for paper that the customer call in as missed paper at the rate of $2.00 per daily misses, and $5.00 per Sunday misses. And don’t let the wind blow.
The carrier has to pay for all rubber bands and plastic bags. He or she is not compensated for fuel. My fuel cost run on average between $500.00 and $600.00 per month. And the average mile driven per year is around 23,000 miles per year.
Getting ready to retire. I figure I can make more sitting on my butt on SS’
I have figured that after the cost of supplies, gas, and repairs as needed, I make an average of $.01 cent for every paper delivered.