New York Times's Web Subscriptions Won't Break the Bank

The New York Times (NYT) plans to charge less than $20 a month for access to an online edition of the newspaper, Bloomberg News reported, citing an unidentified source.

That means online subscriptions will come to less than the $19.99 per month that the Times charges for electronic subscriptions on Amazon.com's (AMZN) Kindle e-reader, Bloomberg says. Online subscriptions also will cost far less than print subscriptions, which come to about $50 a month.

Online readers have been waiting for price information since last year, when the Times said it would start charging frequent online readers -- who aren't already subscribers -- sometime during the first quarter of this year. The idea is that a limited number of articles would be free, but those readers who want more would have to pay a fee.

The move comes after The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London both started charging for online content last year.