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The speculations now rest in peace as The New York Times Company has officially announced its planned paid model.

After speculations doing rounds in the media and internal debate, The New York Times Publication has finally decided to introduce its paywall model for the website NYTimes.com.

In a press release the Company has announced that at the beginning of 2011 it would be adopting a metered model for its website. According to this devised model the company would be offering the readers with free access to a particular number of articles per month and thereafter charge users once they exceed that number.

Well, the reason that is supporting this strategy to be implemented by the NYT is that the website NYTimes.com would be bringing a second stream of revenue as well as “preserve its robust advertising business”.

"Our new business model is designed to provide additional support for The New York Times' extraordinary, professional journalism," says Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times in a prepared press statement. "Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services."

"This process of rethinking our business model has also been driven by our desire to achieve additional revenue diversity that will make us less susceptible to the inevitable economic cycles," affirms Janet L. Robinson, president and CEO, The New York Times Company."

Moreover, through 2010, NYTimes.com will be building a new online infrastructure designed to provide consumers with a frictionless experience across multiple platforms. Once the metered model is implemented, New York Times home delivery print subscribers will continue to have free access to NYTimes.com, says the Company. More details regarding the metered model will be available in the coming months.

The New York Times has been considering various paid models currently prevalent in the industry, something like that of The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times. Paid content has been a raging issue over the past year as the newspaper publications, especially in the United States, have been facing the brunt of recession and adoption of technology with falling circulation and decreasing advertising revenues.

Thus, offering online content for a subscription has been viewed as a more viable substitute to generate revenues by the publishers, while, at the consumer end the reception is still questionable. Will NYT’s metered model work for it to have additional stream of revenue, 2011 has the answer!