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Murdoch: WSJ.com expected to be free

Posted by Cory Bergman on November 13, 2007

Not surprised, are you? Rupert Murdoch says plans are underway to make WSJ.com a free site. “We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having one million (subscribers), having at least 10 million-15 million in every corner of the earth,” Murdoch said. The idea is that the increased traffic will yield more incremental ad dollars than the $50 million the site is taking in now in user fees. As far as a timeline, Murdoch’s News Corp. is holding a special shareholders meeting on Dec. 13th.

Alright Lost Remote readers, where do you come down on this?

Rocker

If they can get 15 million monthly users as a mostly* free site, that should be good for at least $100m in revenue.

*Even free, there are probably some upsell possibilities.
TJ

There is no doubt that they will make a considerable amount off ads. They provide alot of content that could be available to even more outlets. MAKE IT FREE!
mike jones

It’s going to take a long time to make up that revenue that he’s throwing away. Diversification of revenue is never a bad thing, particularly when the ad market wanes.

He should put most things free, but create a premium product.
News Consumer

Thre’s more to the value of the content than merely the subscription or ad dollars that content might generate. Th WSJ is one of the few media companies that has a public image as a premiere news source. By giving away that content they may ultimately be devaluing it. It’s a tricky trade-off – give it away so more people will read it and thereby driving up ad revenues, or keep it subscription and maintain the image as a high-value source.