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WSJ's Online Subscriptions Outperform Print
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."
The real information gathered from the story is that consumers buying Wall Street Journal online are paying 20 times too much. They should be paying $4.20 a year.
At least competition will help as if there is so much money in something then everyone will be doing it.
...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.
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This makes sense to me, especially when you are dealing with the chaotic and capricious world of finance. It's nice to have a paper with you, sure, but with the ever changing world of business, you need to have now headlines now, and yesterday's news may be obsolete by the time it gets to your door.
But now that your average PDA is small than the magazine, and you can get the latest news online, not to save the number of trees you save, there's not really a justification for having paper publication of periodicals.
But I still prefer reading my books on paper. And most people I know feel the same.
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How many people (like me) do both. Existing print subscribers can add the online service for $39 per year. I prefer to do most of my reading from the print version, but the interactivity of the online is also frequently useful....
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.
People just pick it up when they stop to get gas/smokes/coffee/whatever, or just read the copy lying there on the subway, etc..
This doesn't take those kind of numbers into account. That is, this isnt saying more people read WSJ online than they do in print.
If I were to guess, I'd say most would prefer to read dead-tree material than read a computer or PDA screen. It's just so much more comfortable for the eyes, and easier to take to the john.
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The more publications go online successfully, the more demand there will be for ebooks and other portable reading devices, the quicker we'll finally get usable cheap ebooks.
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And that's only the subscriptions. Never mind the medium costs. Print costs are really expensive. Maybe some other Slashdotters would have better statistics available at hand, but I remember doing a print run of 1000 copies of a magazine with 32 pages in it for about $1000 (cdn). These days you can get free online webpages that'll handle bandwidth that matches that kind of distribution, whereas paper and ink costs haven't gone down all that much in the past few years.
It would seem that way, wouldn't it? But the reporting and writing that paper does is superior to just about everyone else. I'm willing to pay the amount they're demanding. Am I stupid? Maybe. But I think the other alternatives are definately not worth their price.
And I'd lik to add that I pay the newstand price ($1) because the WSJ is a data whore. When I did subscribe to them, my junk mail increased about three fold.
All of these publications make their bank by overpricing their products to make even ripoff prices sound like a great deal. After all, why would any magazine give you a year's subscription for eighty or ninety percent below the cover price? Jack up the price on the cover so people think they're getting an amazing deal on a subscription while you still bring in large profits.
This is just the next extension. You think you're getting a great deal with your print subscription? How about an online subscription for even MORE savings?
I think that these online publications and their pricing schemes are only as successful as they are because they have such precedent as being a pricey product. It's why CD's are still $15, why purchasing digital music is around a buck a track, and why people buy books on amazon thinking that their 10% discount is amazing.
In relative expenses, print is so much more Capital Intensive compared to On-line. Not only that, but the turn-around required to post a story is faster with web-based publishing. Most economic projections show that charging 50% less for a yearly subscription for significantly faster news response is over 200% more profitable when going to a web-based readership.
They should offer a paid service for stories over 2 months old and delay stories by 15 minutes to an hour for non-subscribers. In addition, have specialized content for subscribers. With no required signup to see the free content, they would encourage people to check out the site. I believe they would end up with a decent return on investment.
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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".
Circulation (i.e., dead-tree distribution) is expensive and most pubs do it at a loss, or at best break-even, based on the full cover price. But ad revenue is much higher for print than on line. An ad in the paper is much more likely to reach the target, hence costs more and is more worth it. An on line ad may be exposed to more eyeballs, but they are filtered by the frontal cortex.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Online subscribers pay $84/year, whereas print subscribers are still paying $356
The WSJ only costs you $356 if you buy it from the newstand every day. Don't do that. In fact, you can get a year of the print AND online versions for only slightly more than the online versions. Check here for a $99/year deal. (referral-free link).
What I like about the WSJ is that, unlike in most papers where fact and opinion are combined through out all the news articles, the WSJ is pretty much straight facts in the articles and the opinions are relegated to the Opinion section. Don't get me wrong, I like reading the Opinion section but when it comes to news reporting, just the facts ma'am!
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Almost all the "first-tier" papers tried charging for content. The WSJ was the only one that was succesful. The reason is that WSJ has original content that no one else has while the other papers are all getting their news from wire services and government briefings so they all had the same stuff. The NYTimes of the 1950s which has a large international staff (and thus plenty of original international content) probably could have had a pay website. The NYTimes today doesn't have anything all that important to say.
That's 1.7 microns! A human hair is about 100 microns. High end litho presses run about 900 lpi.
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