The New York Times passed an important milestone this week.  Circulation revenue for the third quarter was $175 million, up 6% from a year ago, according to Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review.  The milestone?  Circulation revenue has now passed advertising revenue, which was $164 million for the quarter-down 27% from last year.  And as Chittum points out "this is not a good thing":

This is not a good thing, of course. The ad-to-circ ratio was two-to-one just three years ago. The radical shift is almost entirely due to the loss of ads (most of which aren’t coming back). But not quite: Circulation revenue is up by $20 million or so in that time. At a time of misery in the industry and when naysayers say you can’t charge for news online, theTimes and other newspapers are increasing the money they get from charging for news.

The worst news here? Online ads at the NYT were down 19 percent in the quarter. Oh, also, the entire company lost $36 million in the three months ending in September. That’s pretty bad, too.

Read Chittum's post on the NYT's circulation earnings here, and also his earlier reporting on growing circulation revenue in the news business here.  

This inevitably--although perhaps hastily--draws one into the question of whether the Times should consider a pay-for-content model online.  The news comes the same week as The Wall Street Journal looks to add to its pay-for-content strategy with the new "Professional Edition" starting in November. And the pay-for-content strategy might hit the video service of Hulu (NewsCorp, which owns the Wall Street Journal, is one of the owners of Hulu) as well.