WSJ parent talking to Facebook about online content subscriptions

News Corp., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, is holding “very advanced” discussions with Facebook Inc. about subscriptions to its content online, reports Bloomberg News reporters Daniele Lepido and Tomasso Ebhardt.

Lepido and Ebhardt write, “A deal to promote subscriptions via Facebook could be a boon to the newspaper and magazine industries. Publishers are relying more on getting readers to pay because they’ve struggled to sustain a digital advertising business as Facebook and Google vacuum up the lion’s share of online ad dollars.

“The agreement could include bundling subscription content, perhaps around specific topics like sports or business, Thomson said at a conference last week in London. Zuckerberg has recognized that premium sources of news and journalism have suffered over the last decade, Thomson said.

“Facebook’s solution is ‘beneficial not just for us but is efficacious for smaller publishers as well,’ Thomson said then. ‘There needs to be a fundamental change in the outlook to how we value content and the value of content.'”

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