Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch
WSJ to start charging for iPhone content
Say farewell to the free Wall Street Journal on the iPhone.According to Paid Content, News Corp's Rupert Murdoch announced that readers of the WSJ on the Blackberry and iPhone will be charged $2 per week for the privilege of reading news through the respective apps. Online and print subscribers of the WSJ will only pay $1 a week. No time limit has been set yet, but Murdoch says it will be within the next few months.
There's bad news for Hulu lovers as well. Murdoch also said News Corp is considering either a pay-per-view or subscription model for Hulu. "No final decision has been made," Murdoch said via Webcast at an investor conference today. The WSJ itself reports that subscription offerings will roll out for media content before the end of the year, though it was made in a different context from the Hulu statement.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Patrick said 3:07PM on 9-15-2009
Bye bye WSJ.
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Panolo said 1:22AM on 9-16-2009
Adios WSJ. Don't need you anyway
max Walker said 1:29PM on 9-16-2009
Who cares.....unless the BBC start charging.
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MRCUR said 3:15PM on 9-15-2009
Good thing I just downloaded the TIME App, which is fantastic. Bye bye WSJ for iPhone.
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John Luetke said 3:23PM on 9-15-2009
If Hulu starts charging, piracy is going to skyrocket.
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Jon said 4:06PM on 9-15-2009
Agreed!
If they start charging for content that has always been free/ad supported, it's not going to go over well.
Hulu is popular now because it is convenient, and FREE. Take away one of those ingredients and the brand will die.
mabhatter said 4:40PM on 9-15-2009
it will be subscription AND ad supported... after all people will still watch them even after they start paying .. just like Cable TV.
LAGal said 8:21PM on 9-15-2009
i disagree. if the amount is reasonable and comes with no ads or at least no internal ads (one at the beginning isn't so heinous), many folks will likely be happy to pay. I know I would. they could still keep the current scheme for those that don't want to pay anything.
Joe R. said 3:27PM on 9-15-2009
Hahahahahahaha. Good luck guys.
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Tim said 3:28PM on 9-15-2009
It'll be nice to watch WSJ and HULU shoot themselves in the foot. Idiots.
Later WSJ
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Chris Westergaard said 3:35PM on 9-15-2009
There will be a lot of people commenting that there is plenty of free content online. But the simplest statement is that you get what you pay for. WSJ can charge because they provide unique content that is worth the cost. It is content that I actively seek out, where as for general news stories, I don't look at the name on the banner. General news stories are generally bad, so I wouldn't give a penny in micropayments to Time or any other 'mainstream' news provider.
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Fernando said 3:32PM on 9-15-2009
WSJ charges for everything in a true capitalist way, what more do you expect.
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Colin S. said 3:33PM on 9-15-2009
Ya know, I think the WSJ will be fine. There are probably enough people who get the WSJ app that have disposable income to spend 2 bucks a week on it to support it. Hulu on the other hand though, will implode faster than I think anything ever has if it goes to a pay model. We watch commercials on it already. Now we'll be asked to pay, and instead of watching the commercials, I'll just go to isohunt. lol good call Murdoch. You clearly still just dont get new media.
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hmlong said 7:32PM on 9-15-2009
If you paid a modest amount AND they dropped the ads in turn, then it might be worth it.
Paying to watch advertising, however... fail.
randyharris said 3:35PM on 9-15-2009
That's too bad, I don't find it worth paying $8/mo for, but admittedly it's one of my most used and favorite Apps on my phone.
I'd pay $20/year for it.
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Logan said 3:43PM on 9-15-2009
If Hulu goes to a paid model, the price would have to be extremely reasonable. For me personally, it'd have to be an "all-you-can-eat" plan for around $5 per month. I won't pay per episode.
If it's anything above that, I'll just go right back to torrenting everything, in which case News Corp will receive zero revenue from me (unlike the average amount they receive right now through Hulu advertisements).
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Martin said 3:44PM on 9-15-2009
It was coming eventually. They couldn't, like so many others, figure out how to keep it free. They went for a long while though.
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Limegrntaln said 3:49PM on 9-15-2009
Well think about it. Before the internet people got charged fpr news papers. Now in the digital age people read the info on the internet. Charging for the online app would be just like someone buying a paper. All people want these days is, "I want it now" and "I want it for free" or you can go f@ck yourself. Its ridiculous people are so FN cheap these days.
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waiownsyou said 4:38PM on 9-15-2009
Wow, are you retarded?
Print media requires a lot more resources than digital. There's the machine to print it, the paper to which it prints, the ink which creates the text/pics, and the way of distribution/delivery via trucks, some guy on the street, news stands, etc. Bandwidth and server upkeep is pretty cheap compared to that. Also, newspapers didn't really have competition except from other newspapers. If you Google a story, you can find hundreds to millions of sites that give what you need for free.
I'm going to stop feeding the troll now.
mabhatter said 5:01PM on 9-15-2009
I just hit their subscription site for print. They want $349 for a year or $6.71 per week for the delivered version (@40% off list price of $582 yr/ $11.20 wk)
The wsj online site wants $2.87 per week ($1.99 on sale) so they're basically hitting everybody the same. (although charging print customers any extra is double dipping in my opinion)
There you have it. They view their "cost" to produce the news at about 25% the printed price of the paper. I'm sure that's padded a bit to turn the books around a little bit as well.