Reuters Announces $35 Monthly Paywall
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Worldwide news agency Reuters will put its articles behind a $35-per-month paywall, as part of an effort to attract business professionals, the company announced Thursday.
“In addition to targeting its current global readership, the newly revamped Reuters.com is hoping to attract professional audiences prepared to pay $34.99 per month for a deeper level of coverage and data on industry verticals that include legal, sustainable business, healthcare, and autos,” a story by Reuters staff said.
Reuters will allow users to access five stories as part of a free “preview period,” but will require registration for further access.
“Reuters.com attracts 41 million unique visitors a month, according to a New York Times story on the Reuters paywall move. “Months of audience research showed that those readers were divided in two separate groups: those wanting breaking news and professionals looking for context and analysis about how news affected their industry, Josh London, chief marketing officer at Reuters, said in an interview.”
The move is clearly aimed at competing with business news publications already behind comparably-priced monthly paywalls. Bloomberg.com, for example, charges $34.99 per month, and the Wall Street Journal charges $38.99. Digital subscriptions to major newspapers, such as the Times and The Washington Post, are generally lower, and are often combined with promotions. A monthly Times subscription, for example, currently runs around $18 per month before promotional discounts which can take more than 75 percent off.
According to the Reuters story, the move is part of a larger digital strategy that includes a “deeper investment in areas such as legal news, where it has added journalists and launched new products, including daily newsletters. It will also offer live streams of Reuters events to subscribers.”
Reuters is the news division of parent company Thompson Reuters, which also offers legal and business information services. Around half of Reuters’ revenue is generated by its biggest client, financial data specialist Refinitiv. Additional revenue comes from licensing of text, video, pictures, data, and graphics to media companies, along with advertising revenue from the Reuters website.
It was not immediately clear when Reuters would begin charging for article access.
Earlier this week, Reuters named Allesandra Galloni as editor-in-chief, the first woman to hold that position in the agency’s 170-year history. Galloni and Reuters president Michael Friedenberg have said the success of the digital and events business is one of their top priorities, according to Reuters.
