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Columnists and other material that was behind the pay wall will be free as of Tuesday night. The New York Times is even opening up its archives back to 1986. The paper insists that TimesSelect was a success, claiming 227,000 subscribers and $10 million a year in revenue, but says it will do better with search-optimized pages and ads. Senior VP Vivian Schiller spoke to Staci D. Kramer at PaidContent.org:
The timing was a coincidence, Schiller said, determined by when the NYT could have all the systems in place for refunds, customer communication and making the content accessible. All that will remain of TimesSelect by Wednesday will be the original content commissioned for the premium service. That, too, will be opened and, Schiller said, original content for the site will be expanded.
Here's the New York Times story. News Tracker and Times File will also go free, but Times Reader will continue to cost.