• Financial Times, Monday, May 11, 2009 1:17 PM

News Corp. has announced micro-payments for individual articles and a new premium subscription service for the Wall Street Journal's Web site, which will be rolled out this year, The Financial Times reports. The move comes at a time when the newspaper industry is searching for a better online business model, as advertising revenues plunge. This is the first time a major newspaper adopted micro-payments. Other big papers will be watching the experiment closely.

Senator John Kerry tells the FT that it's conceivable newspaper publishers will be given limited exemption from antitrust laws to pursue these kinds of new online business models.

Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Journal, told the FT that "a sophisticated micro-payments service," would be available this fall for non-subscribers to WSJ.com. "We're going to move in on each of the big cities," he said, meaning that the Journal will publish online content geared towards specific markets in an attempt to broaden its appeal. It will sell these subscriptions at a small premium, but for less than the $100 per year it currently charges for a WSJ.com subscription. The Journal is clearly trying to capitalize on the failure of many local papers, but it will also go after specific sectors with its premium plan, like energy, commodities and wealth management. It will also charge for individual articles for those that don't buy a premium subscription. Pricing, Thomson said, would be "rightfully high."

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