Wayport to Offer Free Digital Editions of NYT in 800 U.S. Locations

Wayport, a company that provides Wi-Fi wireless and wired Internet access in hotels, airports and McDonald’s restaurants, will offer free downloads of The New York Times‘ digital editions.

Wayport provides Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless and broadband wired Internet access in 680 U.S. hotels (including those of the Four Seasons, Loews, Wyndham, Hilton, Marriott, Sheraton, Doubletree and Embassy Suites); Wi-Fi in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Seattle-Tacoma, San Jose, Austin, Oakland and Buffalo airports; and has a pilot program to delivery Wi-Fi access inside approximately 100 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. Wayport says it has recorded more than 3 million customer connections.

Wayport said that free downloads of the NYT’s digital edition will be offered at all those locations. The offer is a cross-promotional program among Wayport, the NYT, and NewsStand, Inc. (which the NYT partially owns). Consumers who like the digital edition and purchase a subscription to it via the network will receive a free $25 Wayport prepaid connection card.

Wayport says that business travelers prefer to receive news and information on the road in the same familiar format as print editions. “Full-content digital media such as major newspapers like The New York Times are a great benefit for busy, time-pressed travelers,” said Dan Lowden, vice president of marketing for Wayport.

We think this deal is progress towards high-speed wireless delivery of newspapers directly to consumers — a necessity if newspapers are to survive during this century. Although this particular deal use only the short-range WiFi technologies and the relatively huge NewsStand digital edition files, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.

What We Do

Since 1996, the media business consulting firm of Digital Deliverance has provided publishers and broadcasters on four continents with strategic reviews and advice about how to profitably adapt to the epochal changes that computer-mediated technologies have wrought on the media environment and their industries.

Over the years, the firm’s clients have include The New York Times, News Corporation, The Irish Times of Dublin, Dagbladet of Oslo, The Mail & Guardian of Johannesburg, Advance Publications, Critical Mention, MediaNews Group, New Century Network, the Media Development Investment Fund, the National Cancer Institutes, and scores of other media firms that need to adapt to computer-mediated technologies and the rise of Individuated Media.

The managing partner of Digital Deliverance is Vin Crosbie, Adjunct Professor of postgraduate New Media Management at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, in upstate New York. From 2007 through 2020, he wrote and was the sole instructor of the school’s New Media Business course, a course required for students in the New Media Management master’s degree curriculuum, an elective course for Ph.D. students, and a permission-only course for selected undergraduates and graduate students.

Digital Deliverance is incorporated as a limited liability company in the U.S. state of Connecticut, where it is based in the city of Norwich, Connecticut.