WSJ.com Wants to Be Free? Maybe Not!

Memo to everybody who blithely jumped to the conclusion that Rupert Murdoch was going to make the Wall Street Journal's Web site free: Looks like you were wrong.

Turns out that Murdoch, upon further review, apparently has figured out what some of us knew all along: It's not that easy (or smart) to walk away from $70 million in guaranteed annual revenue—and the high CPMs that subscription-based audience underwrites.

According to the New York Observer (which really buried the lede, btw), Murdoch told Journal bureau chiefs last week that he was rethinking his speculative statements—made before he actually owned the paper—that he'd tear down WSJ.com's subscription wall and make the site free:

According to three people present at the bureau chiefs’ meeting last week, Mr. Murdoch has scaled back his ambition to make WSJ.com entirely free. “He said he originally thought making it free would bring in the biggest audience, but that after studying it it’s not as simple as he thought,” said one person present.

Mr. Murdoch said that they would continue to study it, and there’s a strong possibility that a hybrid model would be created perhaps similar to what’s being used now (The Journal’s news content is currently behind a firewall; its opinion page was opened for free last week).

That's a more reasoned approach, and it shows that smart business analysis trumps uninformed Web speculation and wishful thinking every time. Opening the opinion pages to free access makes sense—opinion drives traffic in the blogosphere and on the Web. But it was hard to truly make a business case for making the rest of the site free.

Murdoch is making the right choice, and I'll continue to happily pay my $99 a year to read WSJ.com. Nice to see that somebody puts value on high-quality content!

Comments

[10yr OnlineSubscriber]

I'll second your comment:

"Murdoch is making the right choice, and I'll continue to happily pay my $99 a year to read WSJ.com. Nice to see that somebody puts value on high-quality content!"

However, despite my 10 years of loyalty to WSJ online, I would not be willing to pay more for what I feel is a product of convenience. The majority of information I access using the WSJ online is available for free elsewhere and a higher subscription price would warrant utlizing other news channels.

Looks like the "$70 million in guaranteed annual revenue" is largely in the hands of how the new management decides to treat it's loyal customers.

[kelly]

Good news on the WSJ On-Line. I would easily pay triple if the there was no advertising. Similarly, I do not buy logo clothes but occasionally accept them free.