WSJ Makes Readers Pay ( A Lot)
By Don | December 19, 2009
The Wall Street Journal may be the most indispensible newspaper in America based on its fee structure for subscribers of print, online and smart phones.
From FishbowlLA
Rafe Needleman pays $100 a year for his online subscription to the Wall Street Journal. As he writes for CNET, he recently discovered just how far his money doesn't go:
I recently downloaded the iPhone app for the WSJ, and discovered that getting access to the stories that I'm paying for already on the Web was going to cost me another $52 a year. And that's the discounted rate for existing subscribers. iPhone and BlackBerry app access is $78 a year if you don't already have either a Web or print subscription. It's only if you subscribe to both the Web and print editions of the WSJ that you get iPhone app access for "free."
To read WSJ on the Amazon Kindle involves yet another hefty fee. That's an awful lot of cabbage for just one paper, especially when Google news is free.
I use a blackberry and downloaded the WSJ app only to find out that a subscription fee was required even though I am a print subscriber. I'd be willing to pay a few bucks for full access but $78 on top of the nearly $200 I'm already paying for the print edition? No thank you.
Nevertheless the Journal is the envy of the newspaper industry as it has been able to not only weather the downturn better than most but has a successful online model as well.
Post #2512
3 Comments | Post a Comment
pay for content model is dead, defunct. there will be plenty of writers hungry to provide stories to online publishers and plenty of advertisers chomping to get their message on the pages readers prefer. holding back the advertisers to keep content quality up will be the new challenge for online publishers
Personally, I can’t really accuse or condemn Murdoch and Dow Jones of anything. It’s his prerogative, and I wouldn’t expect conservatives or libertarians having a problem with it. It’s just a little odd and questionable, seeing as how WSJ is already #1 and they’re willing to risk it to make an extra buck. Having said that, I’m sure they know what they’re doing.
December 19 at 11:05 pm | #1 | Link
Is this really a surprise. Murdock owns it you know damn well he’ll do anything for a dollar.
On a side note since this website is about the media, has anyone noticed how big of a deal the news media is making of the snow. We had three feet were I live last year and I didn’t hear a peep from the news about that. It just shows how ego maniacs they are, “it affects us so we’ll talk about it for days, if affects you, we don’t care.” Pathetic.