The subscription service, called TimesSelect, required readers to pay $49.95 per year or $7.95 a month to read the work of popular columnists such as Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman.

Now, the entire site will be accessible for free, including archives from 1987 to the present as well as those from 1851 to 1922.

The paper added that some charges will remain for archival work between 1923 to 1986.

The newspaper said the TimesSelect program had met targets by drawing 227,000 paying subscribers and generating about 10 million dollars a year in revenue.

So the big question is how soon will the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal following suit?