The economic downturn hasn't been kind to the newspaper business already struggling with fewer readers and diminished advertising revenue. Needless to say, most aren't happy about their situation yet few have made attempts to adapt to a new business model. The prestigious New York Times is contemplating one such new model with the introduction of a $5 monthly fee for some of its online content.

The newspaper sent a survey to its print subscribers asking them if they would be willing to pay $5 a month for the online content, according to Bloomberg. The survey also asked if they would be willing to pay a smaller $2.50 fee to access the site if they were already subscribers to the print edition. This would confirm that the newspaper is clearly researching the option to add a subscription model for online content, something it actually did in the past, several years ago, with a program called “Times Select” that charged viewers for access to some of the high-profile editorials. That program generated an estimated $10 million a year from as much as 220,000 monthly subscribers yet it was dropped in 2007.

Currently the NYT generates revenue online from advertising with its 15 million unique monthly visitors to the NYTimes.com page. This amounts to an estimated $150 million to $175 million a year. It also currently charges $14.95 a month for its Times Reader application built on Adobe AIR but it offers it for free to its paid version subscribers.

Charging for some of its online content could prove successful for the NYT following the Wall Street Journal, which also has a subscription model for its online version. However, it is a hybrid model as all of the content, the actual stories, is available to anyone, subscriber or not, but those who pay get the full version of the site with all of the navigation links. This has proved very successful for the WSJ generating an estimated $200 million yearly from advertising and subscriptions.