Categories: OLD Media Moves

WSJ.com ad revenue will offset dropping subscriptions

Mick Weinstein, editor of the Seeking Alpha web site, writes Thursday that The Wall Street Journal‘s web site will more than recoup its lost revenue by dropping paid subscribers with its advertising revenue.

Weinstein wrote, “Applying these numbers — for a free WSJ.com to hit $78m (current WSJ.com revenue) in yearly ad sales, at $20 RPM:

“$20 RPM x 325m pages = $6.5m revenue/month = $78m revenue/year

“325 million pages is just 2.6x the current 122 million pages WSJ.com currently serves up (as per Wang and DJ statements). That’s without the Murdoch marketing machine and the huge traffic benefits of aggregators, viral linking and search results. That’s a far cry from Wang’s numbers, very doable from WSJ’s perspective – and with room for much more long-term growth than a subscription business.

“Online finance sites, prepare yourself for a free WSJ.com.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.