Wall Street Journal to raise price

Jeff Bercovici of Conde Nast Portfolio reports Tuesday that The Wall Street Journal is raising its price again.

Bercovici writes, “Starting on July 28, the Journal will raise its cover price from $1.50 to $2.00, putting it on a par with the Financial Times. Interestingly, the hike comes as the paper’s editors are being urged to think more about how they can use the front page to boost newsstand sales — not something that has traditionally been a major focus.

“An industry source says distributors are unhappy about the way the Journal has handled the increase, giving them just two weeks of advance notice and offering them only 5 cents per copy of additional revenue. ‘Doing it like this creates a lot of ill will,’ says the source.

“It’s also bound to cost the Journal some readers — unless, of course, that new, zippier front page really is that much more appealing to newsstand browsers. After the paper increased its cover price from $1 to $1.50 last year, average single copy sales fell by about 8 percent.”

Read more here.