October 2nd, 2007 by Lloyd Gofton
Following on from my earlier post about Rupert Murdoch’s suggestion that the WSJ will drop its online subscription policy, it seems the FT is quickly following suit.
As you may have seen yesterday, the FT announced it will be partially removing its own subscription charge, offering free access for the first five articles, with registration required for up to 30 free stories per month.
Interestingly, The FT’s publishers, Pearson, believe that the new model supports both advertising growth and subscription growth, but the point of offering more content for free is surely aimed at allowing advertisers to better target FT.com’s users.
And why not, the growth of online advertising continues to better all predictions. Just today, the IAB’s figures have confirmed that the UK’s online advertising sector, which has overtaken the direct mail sector, should be worth £2.75bn by the end of the year. The FT and WSJ will surely want a bigger slice of that pie.
The competition between the FT and WSJ is well documented, and once Rupert Murdoch is in control, (probably by the end of the year) I expect the transatlantic financial paper battle to step up a gear. Could this be the first battle ground?
Technorati tags: ft, wsj, subscription, online+advertising
Tags: , ft, online advertising, subscription, wsj
