E-Media Tidbits

In a surprising move, the Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times has decided to make its popular LATimes.com entertainment section, CalendarLive, a separate paid Web service. Beginning August 4, to get access to the site you'll either have to be a 7-day-a-week print subscriber to the Times (and get free CalendarLive access) or pony up $4.95 a month or $39.95 for a year. The main LATimes.com news site will remain free access to all registered users. The move is designed to give the Times a "strengthened" relationship with print subscribers -- a reasonable rationale. Premium Web services certainly can be used to add value to print subscriptions and thus retain valuable print circulation. (CalendarLive subscribers also will be offered exclusive discounts at merchants and restaurants.)

However, I worry that this may not be the ideal approach because Los Angeles is a major tourist destination (Hollywood, DisneyLand, etc.). That means lots of tourists use CalendarLive for information, and now they'll be turned away (and seek out other LA sites) by the subscription wall. This is a scenario where alternate payment options -- such as an inexpensive day- or week-pass, or the opportunity to view special advertising in order to gain access (a la Salon.com) -- make sense. CalendarLive executive producer Elaine Zinngrabe responds to that: "We are offering a 14-day free trial, which should help some folks. We have talked about special Salon-type access for special packages like Oscars, Grammys, etc. We may also do shorter term subs, but the issue is that the discount part of the site is really geared toward longer term subs. We're mailing out 'membership kits' and don't really want to try mailing those out to someone who's only a sub for a few days. So we could do it once we figured out how to deal with that part." (Zinngrabe also points out that she has no evidence that a large audience of tourists uses CalendarLive.)