What it would take for WSJ to be free?

Posted on by Rags Srinivasan

In the continuing discussion on charging for online newspaper and unbundling the newspaper, the next question is what it would take for the WSJ to be free?

Current online  subscribers:     1 million

Subscription revenue/subscriber (average) :   $80/year

Lost subscription revenue:  $80 million/year

Current page views:     20 million/month

Expected incremental growth in page views:    180 million/month (10 fold increase)

Required CPM (cost per mille) for WSJ to be indifferent between the two options:  $37

This is more than twice that of sites with 200 million page views per month bring in. So unless the page views increase 20 fold to 400 million a  month or WSJ’s differentiated unique readership can command a CPM of $37 or more, there is no reason to give it away for free.