Prompt's TechBlog
To Free or Not to Free: The WSJ Saga Continues
29 January 2008
Posted by Tarryn
If you follow news about the media at all, the ongoing saga of the Wall Street Journal has featured heavily in industry headlines for the past few months. In the latest plot twist, Rupert Murdoch revealed at the World Economic Forum that WSJ.com will not, in fact, become free.
We'll give you a minute to deal with your disappointment (and to send that subscription cheque in after all).
The announcement has come as a shock after months of hinting by Murdoch that WSJ.com would be made free, a risky move that many thought was intended to boost traffic and ad revenue. With the threat of financial apocalypse splashed across newspapers on a daily basis (and its potential impact on advertising budgets), however, it is hardly surprising that Murdoch would think twice about dismantling one of the most successful paid content sites around.
Some estimates put WSJ.com subscription revenues at roughly $60 million a year (from about 989,000 subscribers). Add to that the premium rates paid by advertisers for access to WSJ subscribers, and the site could potentially lose $100 million a year if content was made free. As it stands, the subscription site is a handy safety net in uncertain times.
It seems that Murdoch now hopes to stick with the less risky option of increasing subscription revenues (during his World Economic Forum presentation Murdoch suggested that subscription fees would be raised). At the same time, he is navigating WSJ.com into the shallow end of the unpaid content pool by increasing the amount of free material on the site, such as editorial page content, in the hopes of boosting traffic and ad revenue.
Of course, Murdoch is known for being a little unpredictable and could change his mind in the future. Here at Prompt, we'll be glued to our screens for the next episode of the Rich and the (not so) Risky.
We'll give you a minute to deal with your disappointment (and to send that subscription cheque in after all).
The announcement has come as a shock after months of hinting by Murdoch that WSJ.com would be made free, a risky move that many thought was intended to boost traffic and ad revenue. With the threat of financial apocalypse splashed across newspapers on a daily basis (and its potential impact on advertising budgets), however, it is hardly surprising that Murdoch would think twice about dismantling one of the most successful paid content sites around.
Some estimates put WSJ.com subscription revenues at roughly $60 million a year (from about 989,000 subscribers). Add to that the premium rates paid by advertisers for access to WSJ subscribers, and the site could potentially lose $100 million a year if content was made free. As it stands, the subscription site is a handy safety net in uncertain times.
It seems that Murdoch now hopes to stick with the less risky option of increasing subscription revenues (during his World Economic Forum presentation Murdoch suggested that subscription fees would be raised). At the same time, he is navigating WSJ.com into the shallow end of the unpaid content pool by increasing the amount of free material on the site, such as editorial page content, in the hopes of boosting traffic and ad revenue.
Of course, Murdoch is known for being a little unpredictable and could change his mind in the future. Here at Prompt, we'll be glued to our screens for the next episode of the Rich and the (not so) Risky.
# posted by Tarryn at 4:28 PM 
Comments:
The quality of the demographics of paid subscribers is probably worth more than the subscription fees. The targeted advertising is worth a fair bit. Opening the doors to everyone would increase costs, but might not dramatically increase the rates they could charge for ads in the current climate (especially since the demographic would lose focus).
Although $60 million seems like a lot of money, it's only about 50 days worth of sales of The Sun newspaper in the UK.
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