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Set The WSJ Free!
There's a discussion brewing at Techmeme on the subject of what Murdoch should do the day he takes control of the Wall Street Journal. I'll say here publicly what I've been saying privately to anyone who will listen to me.
Rupert Murdoch should make the WSJ as free to use online as Google is. And he should do that the first day he owns the paper.
Why isn't the WSJ the force in the online world that is it in the offline world? Easy, because you have to pay for its content and anyone who has spent time doing business online realizes that less than 10% of anyone's audience (even if your audience are rich people) will pay for online content.
It seems to me that the WSJ wants its breaking stories to matter online. How often is a WSJ story the anchor to any serious blog discussion? Maybe once a week at most.
Sure, there's 900,000 paying subscribers. And they generate something like $75mm per year in revenue. Sounds like a lot? Maybe. But Marketwatch, which Dow Jones bought in 2004, was doing $80mm in advertising revenue back then.
All the people who make the decisions at News Corp need to do is look at this chart:
The New York Times, which is mostly free and should be entirely free, does 10x the page views of the Wall Street Journal online. Ten times!
According to comScore, WSJ.com, sees 1.5mm unique visitors per month. That's a joke. There are literally dozens of companies that have launched in the past year that see more than 1.5mm uniques per month.
I know that it's not about 1.5mm uniques, it's about what those 1.5mm uniques look like. And sure, the 1.5mm uniques that the WSJ sees are a strong demo.
Let's look at Fox News, another important News Corp brand. Their services are free online and they reach over 6mm uniques per month. That's more like it.
I think if the WSJ went free online, got its content into the dicussion broadly, got indexed highly in Google, and fully participated in the web in all respects, it could easily see 10mm uniques per month and 100mm pageviews within a year (which might generate as much as $100mm in revenues). That should be the goal, not to remain a niche player in online finance.
Comments (18) | Posted August 1, 2007 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
There's another site whose information I could only peek and salivate: Forrester Research. They often have very interesting researches but mostly for a fee. What do you think of it?
Posted by: Meikah Delid | Aug 1, 2007 4:27:05 AM
actually marketwatch was at about a 40m advertising run rate for 2004 when we sold to Dow Jones. The balance of the revenue came from the licensing business we built from the bigcharts and pinnacor(old screaming media) acquisitions
still, i completely agree that the wsj should be opened up. new business-side management at dj is needed, and new business-side management can make the change. what's a short-term loss of a few tens of millions in revenue to become a key anchor of the online conversation and turn the enlarged audience into 100s of millions in revenue over the medium to long term?
Posted by: bill | Aug 1, 2007 5:23:57 AM
indeed.
make that the economist also - i have subscribed to both the economist and wsj for many, many years but in recent years i only maintain my subscriptions for full online access/archives, etc. i am not interested in the hard copies - an irrelevance, nowadays.
Posted by: carl rahn griffith | Aug 1, 2007 6:48:05 AM
While I agree that WSJ should open up, I don't think it's fair to compare them to the NYT. It's totally different demographics. The NYT has a much, much broader appeal.
I do think that the barrier to entry for the WSJ is much higher - meaning in order to get something out of the WSJ it's basically required that you not only have an interest in business, but an understanding of it. If they can find a way to lower that barrier, without lowering standards, I believe they would become much more effective.
Posted by: Andrew | Aug 1, 2007 8:11:40 AM
I think paid was the right model for DJ because they cared more about a certain kind of reader and high-end influence. The irony is that Murdoch wants the prestige of the WSJ but simply by taking ownership of it, that prestige will be diminished. His populist schtick means he'll have to open up the WSJ online. And I agree with Andrew that comparing the WSJ and NYT doesn't get you very far. The Times gets an audience for sports, NY metro coverage, and features that the Journal doesn't try to reach.
Posted by: Greg | Aug 1, 2007 9:04:38 AM
not only should they make it free but they should socialize it as well allowing comments and profile pages....
Posted by: phil | Aug 1, 2007 9:13:03 AM
Ah you're too late there Fred. Mr. Murdoch might have beaten you to that idea.
Check it out here :: I think his quote about making it free is on Page 3 of the article.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1638182,00.html
Posted by: Mavryx | Aug 1, 2007 10:01:44 AM
The "Publisher's Letter" in today's WSJ noted that online and offline subscriptions are at an all time high. Meanwhile Murdoch has called the WSJ "barely profitable".
They'll have to give a lot of refunds if they make the online free, but it will be worth it.
(Also the print subscription 1 year rate is now only $99. While the newsstand price is a $1 per day! Something ain't right.)
Posted by: rick | Aug 1, 2007 10:45:14 AM
I just renewed my subscription. Online was $99.00 and online plus print was $99.95.
Posted by: Timothy | Aug 1, 2007 12:07:46 PM
I completely agree. NYTimes stories get picked up all the time at HuffPo, but that's because the link goes through. People hate blogging about stories where the link won't go through, or where registration is required. Open it up.
Posted by: Preston | Aug 1, 2007 12:08:52 PM
actually I think every WSJ reporter should set up a myspace page --
seriously I agree that WSJ should open up for domestic US users but should keep subsription for people outside US (but give free online access to anyone who has offline subscription)
Posted by: smartone | Aug 1, 2007 12:20:26 PM
Sorry to be a retentive, but WSJ print is buck fifty at the newsstand. Pretty pricey if you just want to pick it up.
Posted by: clint | Aug 1, 2007 2:55:10 PM
Fred,
I agree that WSJ needs a makeover.
Check out my views at
http://abhishek.tiwari.com/2007/08/02/wsj-its-makeover-time/
Abhishek
Posted by: Abhishek | Aug 2, 2007 12:17:53 AM
Fred,
To underscore your point, here is a six-month trend of inbound links from blogs to any extension of the URLs www.nytimes.com, www.wsj.com and www.marketwatch.com. http://www.blogpulse.com/trend?query1=www.wsj.com&label1=&query2=www.nytimes.com&label2=&query3=www.marketwatch.com&label3=&days=180&x=30&y=11
This isn't proof of causation or effect, but it does show an important relationship between open and closed in the world of publishing. If you want your content and ideas to engage, travel and impact, then they can't be locked up. I certainly believe that WSJ is great, but there's nothing so proprietary about the content that makes it better off concealed.
- Max Kalehoff
Posted by: Max Kalehoff | Aug 2, 2007 10:27:19 AM
I agree, making news and opinion free would probably be a net positive for Murdoch. But I bet they could do that *and* retain a sizeable chunk of their paying subscribers as paying subscribers -- have their cake and eat it too.
Dow Jones generates a mountain of very specialized content -- financial analysis, etc. They could keep that behind a for-pay wall and still reap much higher levels of blog traffic and pageviews by opening the mass-appeal content. Change the mix, rather than completely changing the model. In essence, copy NY Times Select.
Posted by: John | Aug 2, 2007 10:32:19 AM
Re, the NY Times comment; I used to read it religiously online, but found other sites once the paid Times Select kicked in.
Posted by: WFS | Aug 2, 2007 11:26:36 AM
The WSJ costs money because, unlike the New York Times, it isn't crap.
Your graph is dumb. Quantity doesn't always tell the story, try quality some days. Everyone I know in business reads the Journal. No one reads the Times, because it doesn't matter.
Posted by: Geoff | Aug 9, 2007 7:22:48 PM
Now you can read WSJ for FREE!! Try it out: http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~panjiabe/?page_id=21
It works by ref spoofing.
Posted by: tonypan | Aug 15, 2008 1:32:42 PM
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