Financial analysis of online business news sites

Rafat Ali of PaidContent.org has a nice synopsis of a recent research report by Lehman Brothers analyst Doug Anmuth, who breaks down the revenue from the major players in the online business news category as News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch decides what to do with WSJ.com.

Anmuth believes that the three big players — AOL Money & Finance, Yahoo! Money and MSN Money — will generate between $350 million and $450 million in ad revenue this year.

Ali noted other points from his research:

• The total online division of DJ, which includes MarketWatch and several other properties, will generate an estimated $115 million in advertising revenue in 2007.
• Of the ad revs, about $75 million ( 13% Y/Y) is generated by WSJ.com. In addition, WSJ.com will generate roughly $65 million ( 11%) in subscription revenue in 2007, putting advertising/subscription revenues at a 54% / 46% split, or $140 million in total.
• MarketWatch will generate roughly $40 million in advertising revenue in 2007.
• An average page view on WSJ.com currently commands almost 4x the ad revenue of a page view on NYTimes.com.

Read more here. Ali also has a link to the full report.Â