The newsonomics of NYT’s Sunday gain and paid content 2.0

NiemanLabs reporting:
Next Tuesday, look for The New York Times to announce its first Sunday print circulation gain…since 2006. Let three words soak in: Print. Circulation. Gain. Those are wonderful words to anyone in the newspaper business and a small encouraging sign of our turbulent times, right?
In a word: Yes. But…
I’ve been following the Sunday print/daily digital trend since the Times went public with its pay system in January. In an elementary, sleight-of-marketing hand, it priced its Sunday + digital offer cheaper than its digital-only offer, which has apparently worked with its many smart readers who can do basic math. Why not get the Sunday paper in print and smartphone/tablet/online access, especially if it’s cheaper? For readers, it makes common sense. For publishers — almost all of whom applaud the Times ploy — it’s a way to bolster their highest-profit day of the week, a day that brings in a third or more of their ad revenue and is home to that precious keep-it-to-the-bitter-end preprint business.
That simple pricing twist has apparently turned a five-year-old negative line into a thin, positive one at the Times. In addition, circulation revenue is up — not a lot at 1 percent, but up — at the Times in the last quarter, so the overall move to get readers to pay more of the freight of the news business is moving in the right direction.
What’s been dismaying this week, as I talk with many publishers at the dozens of other dailies now charging for digital access, is that it’s hard to find the Times model moving similar Sunday-plus trends elsewhere. Publishers don’t want to disclose actual numbers, but the apparent consensus among those who have charged for six months or more (which covers the reporting period we’ll see when the Audit Bureau of Circulation FAS-FAX numbers releases its half-yearly numbers Tuesday) is that print/digital reader bundling hasn’t had much effect on the decline in circulation numbers.
Why? It may well be that it’s too early, with pay psychologies just kicking in.http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8672091774752856243#editor/target=post;postID=7341912768076313111