Dow Jones hits 3.6 million paid subscribers

Dow Jones & Co. set a new record of nearly 3.6 million total subscriptions in the third quarter across The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s Group, representing a 10% increase year-over-year, including a 20% increase in digital only growth.

As part of the company’s third quarter earnings report, News Corp. also noted that The Wall Street Journal’s digital paid subscribers were up 15% year-over-year to more than two million, another record. Digital subscribers accounted for 73% of the Journal subscriber base for the third quarter.

In recent days, the Journal has reached approximately 3 million total subscribers for the first time, including 2.2 million digital only, which represents over 20% growth year-over-year.

According to internal metrics, unique visitors to The Wall Street Journal were up 74% year-over-year, while Barron’s saw a 163% jump in March alone.  MarketWatch’s unique visitors also rose exponentially, tripling to 90 million in March compared to March 2019.

While information and reporting on the virus helped drive high subscriber counts and traffic, advertising revenue overall was impacted in late March, though digital advertising across Dow Jones rose 25% year-over-year for the third quarter, and accounted for 47% of Dow Jones’ total ad revenues in the quarter.

Overall, Dow Jones revenues increased 5% in the third quarter.  Dow Jones had digital representing 68% of revenues in the third quarter.  Dow Jones profitability improved in the quarter and was a major factor in News Corp.’s News and Information Services segment EBITDA growth of 15% year over year.