Subscription versus advertising is a really hot topic at the moment. Ideally, News Corp would like to both charge a subscription and run advertising on wsj.com as it does in its press and TV operations.
However, the public has a very different view of the online arena and with an abundance of free information out there already, users are unlikely to swallow both subscription and advertising.
Ultimately, however, people will pay a subscription for online services if they feel it represents value and, importantly, they can't get it for free elsewhere.
A hybrid model of part-subscription, part-free access via advertising sounds like the best of both worlds, but the question is: how long would it be before non-subscribers get frustrated at being unable to access the paid-for parts of the website?
The Wall Street Journal makes a lot of money at the moment from its roughly one million paying subscribers.
The question is: can it make more from advertising by making all or most of the site free to users? With the acceleration of advertisers' online spend, it is easy to think that a huge increase in traffic will equal a rise in advertising revenue.
However, the market has changed. Clients now want to be able to target a specific consumer set that they know will respond to advertising. Deploying behavioural tracking technologies adds more depth to user profiling.
But by combining this data with subscribers' personal information, wsj.com has an even greater depth of data that can benefit both advertisers and the firm.
In today's market, this is more important than simply having a mass volume of unknown users, which can be a struggle to sell ads around.
Ultimately, a model of giving people top content for free and, in return, allowing exposure to relevant advertising via a registration process is surely the way forward. It is a win for media owner, consumer and advertiser alike.
- Review by Damien Hodge, head of trading and delivery, Media.com.
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