What you need to know
- The Wall Street Journal is not leaving Apple News.
- News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson said so on an earnings call last week.
- Thomson says that the partnership has expanded its audience.
The Wall Street Journal is sticking with Apple News.
Reported by The New York Post, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson says that the partnership with Apple News has lead to the introduction of more readers to its newspaper. Specifically, having their reporting on Apple News has introduced The Wall Street Journal to more women and a younger audience than the paper previously had.
"That Apple News partnership allows us to focus on that tier of content and bring in a significantly new audience that we would hope to graduate to a paid WSJ subscription over time," Thomson said in an earnings call last week. "And it is a genuinely different audience. It's actually, of late, more women than men. For The Wall Street Journal itself, it's more men than women."
Thomson says that News Corp., which publishes The Wall Street Journal as well as the New York Post and others, is currently in negotiations with other content distributors as well.
"What's public is the deal we have with Facebook, the deal we have with Apple," Thomson said. "And it's also fair to say that negotiations are ongoing with other companies and other regions."
While he refused to say which content distributors the company was in talks with, a fairly easy guess would be Google, who many publishers have complained benefits from their work without properly compensating for it.
"I can't go into detail at the moment because we're in the midst of them. But when you combine these deals, they are having a significant impact on our revenue and our profitability." said Thomson. "And it's frankly true for all media companies."
The New York Times has left Apple News entirely, saying that the app did not provide enough tools for publishers to create a personal relationship with their readers. While some worried their departure would lead others to follow, it appears that others see their relationship with Apple News differently.
