It costs money to subscribe to the print edition of The Wall Street Journal. The price is $2.29 a week to be exact. The newspaper also charges for its $1.99 a week for its online edition.
The best no-cost way to get WSJ content has been on handheld devices like the RIM (RIMM) Blackberry devices and Apple (AAPL) iPhones.
The Journal is going to cut off free access to mobile readers and plans to charge them considerable fees. People who subscribe to the print edition will have to pay $1 a week to see the Journal on their smartphones, and $2 a week if they are not print subscribers.
WSJ is taking a chance by charging for the content on mobile devices. A number of people may simply stop using their phones to read the paper. Those readers are valuable to advertisers. If there is signficant attrition among them, the WSJ.could lose a lot of revenue.
But, Rupert Murdoch has said he plans to charge for the online content that his companies produce. His firm, News Corp (NWS) ,is setting itself up as the leader in the “pay for all content” corner of the media industry. In the case of WSJ he may be right. In the case of The New York Post, he may not be.
Murdoch may find he is simply trading new subscription revenue for lost advertising revenue, making his plan a zero sum game.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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