for the new york times, a little step forward, a little step back

The New York Times is my favorite newspaper (hell, my favorite newsanything) and in spite of the fact that I have lived in the UK for the last year, it's still my first port-of-call for news. But for all the time I spend with the paper, I can't figure out their Web strategy.

Just two days ago the Times announced the launch of TimesCast, a daily Web video that would give viewers an insight into their esteemed newsroom. It's great Web-era thinking: we've got these bright people having these conversations every day, why not turn that into content? I love it.

And it's monetizable content, too - TimesCasts already have a major corporate sponsor.* But then there's this baffling decision: TimesCasts can only be viewed between 1pm and 2pm Eastern time. I should expect that this would go without saying but the Web isn't television. Why on Earth should users have to conform to anyone else's schedule when all the other content on the Web is available on-demand?

This dichotomy of forward-thinking ideas and self-sabotaging implementation is standard practice for the Times. On one hand, they've built an enviably large network of excellent New York Times blogs whose content never appears in the print edition - that's the act of an old media company that's serious about transitioning to the Web. On the other hand, they're less than a year away from putting all that great content behind a paywall and cutting it off completely from the viral Web.

There's got to be a Romulus-and-Remus struggle about how to handle Web content happening at the Times: each side reading the portents differently and fighting for their own interpretation. If TimesCast's implementation is any indicator, I think the wrong side is winning.

*Disclosure: the sponsor is a client of Ketchum, my employer. I have no connection with their sponsorship of TimesCast, however.

Comments

[Miconian]

Someone must have decided that this is a lunchtime webcast, and in order to make that idea succeed, it will only be offered during lunch.

The NYT is pretty progressive in their online monetization strategies. Perhaps it's the sponsor wanted to hit lunch viewers?

[Fernando Rizo]

If you want lunchtime viewers and post the video at 1pm ET to get them, that makes good sense to me. But then why take it down? You'll miss lunchtime viewers in every other time zone.

Is there some trick to limiting the number of viewers that I'm missing?

[James Crawford]

This did make me wonder why, oh why.

I dare you to call them up and ask them their rationale. But call at 1pm ET.