WSJ on iPad for $17.99 a month, magazines to be at or near newsstand prices?

The Wall Street Journal is running a piece that focuses on ad sales for the iPad. Pretty boring stuff except for a few nuggets related to the actual content we crave. Rupert Murdoch already confirmed that his monument to main stream media was coming to the iPad. Hell, they've even been treated to a rare, in-house device to assist with the development of the iPad version of the Wall Street Journal. Now it's quoting "a person familiar with the matter" (wink) who says that The Journal plans to charge subscribers $17.99 per month for iPad subscriptions -- for comparison, the print version of the WSJ costs $349 for 52 weeks or about $29 per month. Not bad, but you can't roll up an iPad to swat the dog.

Conversely, magazines appear set to offer weekly or monthly editions out of the gate, not annual subscriptions. Sources told the WSJ that the April issue of Hearst's Esquire magazine (no stranger to new media) will arrive in downloadable format without advertisements for $2.99, $2 less than the newsstand price, and will include five music videos (each containing the phrase "somewhere in Mississippi," oddly enough) to take advantage of the device's multimedia capabilities. On the other hand, a full iPad issue of Men's Health with match the glossy's $4.99 price. Of course, as we heard earlier, publishers will be experimenting with advertising and pricing models to see what works so expect things to be fluid for quite some time after the April 3rd launch.

[Jordan Posted Mar 25th 2010 3:15PM]

@Atkins:

Sorry, I thought most people would be intelligent enough to understand I was referring to the phone/pod/pad. This is, after all, a post about the iPad.

If you want to argue that you can use flash on your Mac, go ahead. Let's see you use it on any three of those other devices though.

[SSALVAS Posted Mar 25th 2010 3:40PM]

Hi there. My first comment here after being 15 days hooked looking for news about the iPAD.
I don't read magazines either newspaper. I am 27 years old and I think I lost that habit because I don't stop in front the shops to look at magazines and I don't know about magazines but the ones there are in the public library from my town. I am a potential consumer of magazines as much many others (in my opinion) because now the ibookstore will come to me. It will be easy whenever I am bother to go to see what kind of mags are. But if they have ADS I am not going to be the fool who is going to pay a mag. I studied economy to know that they want to cheat on us. How survive the free news sites?? Because of the adds. Indeed, there are sites which pay yo to watch adds, and they make profits! Don't sub-estimate the power of advertisement neither the costumers' intelligence.
A week ago I thought: Apple can do 2 things:
To sell the iPAD for free or a ridiculous price and make profits because of the content sell,
Or to sell the device expensive as it is, and provide free content sharing advertisement benefits with the publishers.
They want the best of 2 worlds, but we are not that stupid. And I consider myself quite a fanboy but right now this is my opinion and I am not going to pay that kind of prices.

So now I am waiting if finally iPAD is not going to offer something good. Because I have the money and I would like to buy one but it is not going to happen if the continue like this. Come on where are the good news before the big day???

[Appleblows Posted Mar 25th 2010 3:40PM]

APPLE SUCKS. AS SOON AS THEY GET INVOLVED IN ANYTHING THE PRICE GOES UP. I WISH THEY WOULD JUST SCREW THE APPLE FANS AS THEY ALWAYS DO INSTEAD OF THE PC PEOPLE. NOW THE PC PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO PAY THE APPLE TAX. KIND OF LIKE THE HEALTH CARE BILL THAT OUR UNFAITHFUL LEADER JUST FORCED UPON US. I BET OBAMA LIKES APPLE. THEY BOTH HAVE CONTROL ISSUES.

[mypublic Posted Mar 25th 2010 6:30PM]

Here's my problem with this. If you're delivering electronic content but you're not having to chop down trees or run printing presses, then you should be passing on those cost savings to me. Don't charge me paper prices for digital content.

[SSALVAS Posted Mar 25th 2010 7:07PM]

@mypublic

yes, they are charging us costs that don't exist anymore.

I hope they realize soon and prices slip so that I can start reading mags again. if not i will find another thing to do. don't worry

[Binkious Posted Mar 25th 2010 11:29PM]

What an absolute disaster

Why would I even think of paying anywhere close to that?

[vibemerchant Posted Mar 26th 2010 9:48AM]

Maybe Engadget could help out by clearing some confusion about the actual pricing of WSJ (both print, and online).

One subscriptionpage mentions a yearly print-price of 119 dollar, a lot less then the above mentioned 349 dollar ( https://www.wallstreetjournal.com/Gryphon/jsp/retentionController.jsp?page=10031 ).

In Europe, I can get a combined print and online subscription for 153 euros (204 dollars). https://www.wsjesubs.com/subscribe/printandonline/index.php?utm_campaign=&utm_source=&utm_medium=

All this makes the iPad-pricing seem a lot less appealing.

[Atkins Posted Mar 27th 2010 1:55AM]

@Jordan Sorry, I thought most people would be intelligent enough to switch to another device if the one they are using is making them "suffer".
When you write "any Apple device", it means any Apple device.

[bud Posted Mar 27th 2010 10:54AM]

I compare this to my recent decision to change my cell phone service from sprint @ 65$ per month for 2 phones to 3 ATT iphones for 375$ per month do I like it better yes would i do it again if I had the choice absoulty not am I going to pay a disconect penalty try to sell 3 iphones on ebay or craigs list and sign up for a new plan with another provider (The 65$ plan was 10 years old and no longer avalible) at an unknown cost. Probably not I hate shopping for phones whether at the store or on line. Lesson learned.Apple products are just not worth it.