Stronger coming out of the recession than going in

Clare Hart, an executive vice president at Dow Jones & Co., talks to Shuchi Bansai of The Business Standard in India about the company’s plans to launch a facsimile edition of The Wall Street Journal and other issues.

Here is an excerpt:

Newspapers are declining in most markets.
You know what’s going on with newspapers like San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and LA Times. Mostly regional newspapers are struggling. But WSJ is a large national newspaper with a global presence through its US, Europe and Asia editions. The second thing is that we have always charged online for our service. You can’t put Dow Jones in the class of newspapers. Newspaper is the flagship product, of course, but we monetise content and our digital revenue opportunity is significant. We are a business news and information services firm.

Is your print business losing money?
You can’t say that. More people are buying the Wall Street Journal and we have had a price increase. Our cover price is now $2. We probably have room to increase the price.

What’s been the change in the company after it moved from the Bancroft family to News Corporation?
It’s more global now. Its coverage is more global — the way we covered the earthquake in China, the terrorist attack and the Satyam situation here in India, has been exceptional.

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