FT Fearing a FREE WSJ.com?

Looks like it.

The Sunday Telegraph ran a good consideration of the Financial Times' fortunes in the coming year. As a paid subscriber to both the WSJ.com and FT.com (not to mention Barron's Online), this pops out at me:

But the plans for wsj.com are those which will most worry Fairhead. Murdoch looks likely to make the website's content free - there are now 930,000 subscribers generating some $75m a year in revenues. Analysts estimate that it would take two years to replace those funds with advertising revenues, albeit from a vastly more visited site.

While the FT recently made it free for casual surfers to read up to 30 of its news stories a month on ft.com, subscriber numbers stand at 100,000. Surprisingly, the number prepared to pay £100 a year or more is growing slightly faster since the free content was expanded, according to Fairhead.

All that could come to an end once wsj.com goes free. Says Ghazi: "Murdoch might be more willing to accept the loss in profit short-term to gain benefit long-term. If there is a requirement to invest considerably in the FT, that will make [Pearson] shareholders nervous."

Comments

[David]

Let's just that the only thing FT needs to fear is fear itself.

http://www.dealbreaker.com/2007/12/post_650.php

I really hope they don't try to compete with the Journal by sinking down to their current level. That would be making a waste of two perfectly good business papers.

[John]

For most of the 1990s, I actually thought the FT was a better paper. But when I started reading the online versions starting about 1997, I gravitated to the WSJ.com and that remains my first read.

I agree, there's room for both with each having a unique voice. I'm hoping that will be the case, whether we get free online access or not.