An Idea for the New York Times’ TimesSelect Service

From the Times’ February report on revenues:

TimesSelect, the fee-based product on NYTimes.com that includes The Times’s distinctive columnists and extensive access to its archives, currently has approximately 639,000 subscribers, with about 66% receiving TimesSelect as a benefit of their home-delivery subscriptions and 34% receiving it from online-only subscriptions.

Biz Weak’s Jon Fine at his Fine on Media blog estimates the dollars:

34% of 639,000 = 217,260 paying subscribers.

Assuming all of these people are paying full freight yearly subscriptions–not guaranteed, that–that’s $10.9 million in revenue.

Is it worth $10.9 million to the Times for it to wall off its columnists? You tell me.

I’ll tell you what would be worth it — having about 1.1 million people pay the Times $10 each if they promise to keep the writings of Maureen (“Obambi” Obama) Dowd, Paul (Economic Ignoramus) Krugman, Nick (Mao Wasn’t So Bad) Kristof, and the rest of the rambling runts away from non-subscribers. The Times can keep the change — it needs it.

Deal?

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ALSO: A shameless plug — note that yours truly predicted in November 2005 [fifth bullet at link] that the Times would have a tough time getting over 250,000 paid TimesSelect members.