Media Notes

Some NYTimes.com Visitors Soon Will Have To Pay Flat Fee For Unlimited Access To Articles

In N.Y., Richard Perez-Pena reports visitors to NYTimes.com starting in January '11 "will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month," but to "read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access." However, subscribers to the print N.Y. Times, "even those who subscribe only to the Sunday paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge." Perez-Pena notes "thousands of readers sent e-mail messages to The Times or posted comments" on the paper's Web site yesterday, with those "saying they supported the move outnumbered by others who vowed not to pay" (N.Y. TIMES, 1/21).

LEAVING THE DIAL: MLS DC United Senior VP/Communications & Marketing Doug Hicks said that the club has "discontinued" its live English-language radio play-by-play "in order to 'refocus its resources into expanding its digital media operations.'" In DC, Steven Goff noted the club since '03 had "bought air time on an English-language AM station." DC United radio announcer Tony Limarzi, who had been with the club "for seven years, has been retained to contribute to an upgraded online presence" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 1/20).

SIGNING OFF: In Boston, Jessica Heslam reports WEEI-AM "The Big Show" co-host Pete Sheppard is gone from the station, "another casualty of an economic climate that has decimated the media industry." Sheppard "had a four-year contract that wasn't up until February 2011, but it allowed the station to terminate the agreement and cut him loose a year early." Sheppard was "given a severance package" (BOSTON HERALD, 1/21). He had been at WEEI since '94, and moved to "The Big Show" in '99 (BOSTON GLOBE, 1/21).

CLIP & SAVE: In St. Paul, Charley Walters writes there could be a "short-term agreement ... reached just after the Winter Olympics" bringing Versus back to DirecTV subscribers (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 1/21).