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Murdoch's New Internet Strategy for the WSJ

Posted by Zonk on from the strange-days-for-the-paper dept.

Reservoir Hill writes "Once Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of Dow Jones & Company is completed later this year, Murdoch plans to provide free access to The Wall Street Journal's Web site, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue. The WSJ web site, one of the few news sites to successfully introduce a subscription model, currently has around one million subscribers and generates about $50 million annually in user fees. Murdoch's decision to move to an advertising based model comes amid reports that newspaper's online profits margins are skyrocketing worldwide. Murdoch's previous internet initiative, his acquisition of MySpace has worked out very well. He actually first discussed this two years ago when he spoke before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on the role of newspapers in this digital world.""

6 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Idiots. they should have done it long ago by Slashidiot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I guess now that's the only way ahead. It is hard to support your business with only subscription revenues. First it was the NYT and now the WSJ. I think in the long run, the right business model is similar to what slashdot has right now. Offer plenty for free, get ad revenues, offer a premium for a small fee, for hardcore users.

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    Tis women makes us love, Tis Love that makes us sad, Tis sadness makes us drink, And drinking makes us mad.
  2. Why the old media still trumps the new one... by dada21 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As a semi-pro blogger who does receive compensation (from advertising, paid product placement, and subscriptions), I still believe there is a long way to go to compete with the biggest old media outlets, especially newspapers. The key difference that I've seen, so far, is that the newspapers still have reporters, while the new media has just journalists. There is a decline in old media reporting, though, as more and more newspapers just regurgitate whatever the AP is reporting. Google News is hilarious when you find 500 identically written articles by major media outlets.

    The WSJ has a unique combination of reporters, journalists, and oped pieces. They're going to be hard to topple. Their biggest downside is their support for war and their support for more government. So far, though, it has not hampered their growth.

    I am one of the few new media writers that still has faith in the old media, but not most of it. There's room for a few dozen major newspapers to compete, but the majority of them will find themselves without readers, or advertisers, as they continue to lose market share to the new media writers who are faster, more varied in opinion, and closer to home for their readers.

    1. Re:Why the old media still trumps the new one... by hey! · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, that's the thing about the WSJ: a tradition of top notch shoe leather reporting with utterly untainted right wing editorials. It's different people doing each function, and each function serves a different purpose. The editorial position is the sizzle that sells the proverbial steak, and the journalism is the steak that gives the sales pitch its credibility.

      The big question everybody's asking is whether Murdoch is coming in with an LBO kind of mentality, looking at the WSJ as collection of unrelated profit and cost centers that can be chopped up and sold off or recombined, spinning off expensive activities like reporting so they can perish in obscurity.

      Having a new media strategy is actually a pretty positive sign. Newspapers are under financial stress, and many are responding by the journalistic equivalent of eating their seed corn. They're cutting back on expensive reporting and buying into cheap opinion. Having an aggressive, well financed strategy requires differentiating yourself from other aggressive, well financed strategies. Murdoch already has financially efficient, opinion centric media. Perhaps he is planning on using WSJ as a way to rebrand the same old stuff, but he may see this as an opportunity to get in with a contrarian strategy. As traditional news outlets become more Murdochian, he can pincer them between the rock and hard place by having products that have less journalistic content (or scruples) than the competitors, and other products with more journalistic content. If he can make both products profitable, he can leave his competitors in an untenable middle ground.

      Since the traditional paper based business is unprofitable, that means having a new media strategy.

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  3. Not dumb, don't care. Don't confuse the two. by Shivetya · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It isn't that people who don't use ad-blocking software are dumb, it is more likely they don't care. Especially if the ads are non obtrusive.

    I only block ads that open new windows and those which sound/video. Other than that I will let the ad display; after all it already consumed my bandwidth - ad blocking plug ins don't stop it from getting to my pc, just displaying it. I figure its not a big price to pay to view content for free.

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    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  4. OpinionJournal considered harmful by senahj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The straight-news part of the WSJ has some of the best and most eclectic reportage out there. It will be wonderful to be able to read it online for free (as in beer).

    The OpinionJournal is so factually-challenged and idealogically blinkered that, at free, it costs too much.

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  5. But, when will ... by Skapare · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ... the New York Times drop their stupid login requirement?

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