Pay Up: The Wall Street Journal Tries Charging Web Subscribers for Mobile Access
by Peter Kafka
Posted on September 17, 2009 at 12:36 PM PT
How on earth does The Wall Street Journal expect its subscribers to pay an additional fee to read the newspaper on a mobile phone?
It doesn’t. Except when it does.
Contrary to News Corp. (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch’s comments earlier in the week, Dow Jones will not be charging customers who subscribe to both its Web and print versions a weekly fee to read the paper on its iPhone or BlackBerry apps.
But if you’re only subscribing to one version? That’ll be a buck a week, starting Oct. 24. The Journal will also start charging mobile-only users $2 a week, which is essentially the same price as a Web-only subscription.
That second charge makes some sense to me. The Journal has always said that it would start charging for the apps it makes for Apple’s (AAPL) and Research in Motion’s (RIMM) handsets. Right now these apps are gratis, which means you can either pay the Journal to read it in print or on the Web, or read it on your iPhone and pay zilch. That had to change at some point.
But while I have to be a tiny bit delicate here–Dow Jones owns this Web site, and I still have some aversion to insulting my employers in public–I don’t see how dunking paying customers a second time makes sense.
I do understand some of the impulse. Publishers of all stripes seem to think that while charging for content on the Web is tough, people are happy to pay for something delivered wirelessly. I think that many publishers are going to be very disappointed when they try this out in practice, but that’s another story.
And I also know that News Corp. has steadily been pushing Dow Jones to raise its subscription prices for the WSJ since it acquired the company, and this strategy sort of dovetails with that.
But seems to me that if I am paying for information, I will expect to consume it wherever I am, at the same price. And you’re starting to hear some publishers say the same thing–see Variety’s comments about subscription plans today in PaidContent.
I don’t actually pay for my WSJ subscription; my employers, who, I should stress, are truly excellent people, have hooked me up–so maybe I’ve got this wrong. Or maybe it’s merely a marketing issue: If you jack up my WSJ subscription and tell me you’re throwing in access to the mobile app for free, I might be okay with it.
But tell me you’re charging me an additional fee to read it on the go and it will stick in my craw. Let’s see if the paper’s paying subscribers feel the same way.
Comments
Boo to the Journal for this decision. I would much rather they charge $50 or even $100 for the iPhone app and not employ a subscription fee. Now it’s just another app I’ll be removing from my phone.
Posted by Pierre Blondin at September 17th, 2009 at 1:02 pmOnce upon a time, before the Internet was anything like it is today I lived in the highfalutin Washington DC suburb of Fairfax County Virginia.
My paper WSJ subscription routinely arrived a day late.
When it because possible to read pretty much the whole paper online I switched from paper to electrons, and saved money in the process.
Last time I checked there was a slight discount to get both the paper and electronic version of the paper, but as I’ve moved to the outskirts of nowhere I’m sure my paper edition would be arriving a day late, if at all.
There is simply insufficient incentive to be a loyal customer. While I can see there being an inflexible minimum cost for the print edition, the electronic ones are comparatively cheap per unit “copy”.
You forgot to mention… no incentive for downloading copies on the Kindle either.
Not to mention that for signing up for MySpace, Murdoch should be paying ME!
Posted by Mac Beach at September 17th, 2009 at 5:28 pmSo I only read the content once. Whether it is on my computer or on my phone, why does the WSJ care? It’s not extra consumption, and it certainly isn’t more expensive to deliver it to me one way or another.
I’ve been a print subscriber since 1985, a print and electronic subscriber 1995 until 1997 and an electronic subscriber since then.
If they pursue this, I’m unsubscribing all-together. This is offensive. Illogical greed.
Even the RIAA doesn’t think I need two copies of a song – one each for my computer and my ipod. Look at that Rupert – you are BEHIND the recording industry in digital media. That is sad.
I hope ‘ol Walt gives this move an honest, objective review.
#WSJFAIL
Posted by bill adams at September 17th, 2009 at 7:05 pm