In what is being hailed as a preparation for "a fierce battle with The Wall Street Journal over business readers and online advertising revenue," the Financial Times is offering general visitors a chance to read their content free.
The specifics of the change are users will be able to access five articles, once that number is reached, they will be required to register with the site. After registering, users will be able to read up to 30 articles on the site before being required to subscribe if they want to access more.
If a user doesn't subsribe, they can only access home pages of FT.com., until the new 30-day period begins.
Some say this will pressure Rupert Murdoch to drop the subscription fee for the Wall Street Journal online site, but I don't think that's the case here. I think Murdoch has made up his mind already on what he's going to do with the site; the move by the Financial Times probably won't be relevant, other than looking at it to see how users respond.
As far as the illusion that there is going to be some "fierce battle" between "The Wall Street Journal" and the Financial Times, I think that's just wishful thinking.
The history of Rupert Murdoch is he's patient and willing to take short-term losses for long-term gains. The Wall Street Journal online site, and paper itself, doesn't need to add to the bottom line of News Corp. (NWS-A) for the company to be successful, but the Financial Times must add to the bottom line of Pearson PLC. That puts The Wall Street Journal in a much more powerful position.
While the Financial Times has some reach outside of the UK and Europe, its strength is still there. Eventually I think the growth and international expansion of the "Journal" will result in the Financial Times being overall a business meeting the needs of the regional area surrounding it, not an international powerhouse.
At this time FT.com gets about 30 percent of its traffic from the UK, 40 percent from America, and 30 percent from Europe and Asia.
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» Subscription Web Models Continue to Change from TheAlphaMarketer
The announcement by executives at the Financial Times that they would be offering non-subcribers a chance to view a limited amount of content for free, reveals the growing changes connected to the subscription-based online model.While the New York Time... [Read More]
Tracked on: October 2, 2007 5:29 PM | Permalink to Trackback