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WSJ's Online Subscriptions Outperform Print

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the numbers-add-up dept.

ScentCone writes "The New York Post is reporting that the Wall Street Journal's parent company, Dow Jones, is doing much better with its online publication than with print. Online subscribers pay $84/year, whereas print subscribers are still paying $356... and the profit on the online business is 20 times that of the paper flavor." From the article: "'They're simply losing market share to other media. Print publishing is not a profitable business for Dow Jones anymore,' said Feinseth. Kann is hoping that the company's long-range growth also comes in online publishing, which has profit margins at least 20-fold higher than print. The Wall Street Journal Online is signing up thousands of new subscribers, up 5.2 percent for the quarter, to a total of 731,000."

5 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Paper is archaic... by tquinlan · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...and I would much rather read things online. Hell, I'd even pay for a well formatted paper to read on my Treo. But it just seems so archaic to watch all the people on the train in the morning attempt to fold their papers and still read while not disturbing the people they're crammed up against.

    --
    DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
  2. Re:Fudgy numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    Harldly anyone subscribes to print newspapers, the days of the paperboy chucking the sunday edition into your rosebush or onto your roof have been gone for a long while.
    Yeah tell that to the paperboy that delivers to my building. The damn kid is too lazy to walk down the hall of my complex, so he just throws the papers at the doors, at 4 in the morning. Wham, wham, wham. It makes me feel guilty for enjoying the videogame Paperboy so much as a kid.
  3. Bean counters to the rescue! by Pac · · Score: 3, Funny

    As soon as the accountants and investment people see this, this wierd situation will be solved by their golden goose killing habits.

    Their first thought will be "Let's raise the online subscription to $356, so our online profit will almost 100 times the paper profit!!".

    Their second thought will be "This online thing was a passing fad anyway".

  4. Re:Fudgy numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    or just read the copy lying there on the subway,

    That's stealing!!!!!!!

    They should be find $150,000, jailed for 15 years, and sacrifice their first born to the JIAA. Lowlife pirates!

    Won't someone think of the typesetters?!?!?!

  5. Re:The real news by Karma+Farmer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Notice that what is being done is that the total revenue per subscriber is being divided by the profit ratio. This makes no sense.

    Why would a wookie, an eight foot tall wookie, want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall ewoks? That does not make sense!