Reuters News (TRI.TO) on Thursday unveiled a new subscription website as part of a broad initiative for court professionals.
The recently revamped Reuters.com is not only targeting its current global readership, but also hopes to attract professional audiences willing to pay $ 34.99 per month for a deeper level of coverage and data on industry verticals, including legal, sustainable business, healthcare and automobiles.
Reuters.com will remain free for a preview period, but requires users to register after five stories. It is not immediately clear when charging starts.
The Thomson Reuters news division is now joining a crowded market of major news organizations already charging for their content.
Among them, financial news rival Bloomberg.com charges $ 34.99 a month before discounts, while the Wall Street Journal, which first launched a paywall in 1996, charges $ 38.99.
Josh London, Chief Marketing Officer, Reuters and Head of Reuters Professional, in an emailed statement called the launch “the biggest digital transformation at Reuters in a decade.”
He added, “Professionals need immediate access to industry knowledge, data and insights from expert sources, and Reuters is pleased to offer our trusted, unbiased and accurate coverage through a premium offering.”
Reuters president Michael Friedenberg and newly appointed editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni have said the success of the digital and events industry is one of their top priorities. read more
Ken Doctor, a veteran media analyst and founder of local news and information company Lookout Local Inc, characterized the introduction of the paywall as “late, but not too late,” noting that Bloomberg only started charging in 2018. his site.
“The critical question for a business news consumer is: what added value do I get from Reuters that I don’t get from Bloomberg or Dow Jones?” he added.
Reuters generates about half of its revenue from its largest customer, financial data specialist Refinitiv.
Refinitiv was part of Thomson Reuters until 2018, when a majority stake was purchased by private equity firm Blackstone Group LP in a deal that valued the company at approximately $ 20 billion. It was then sold to the London Stock Exchange Group Plc in an all-stock $ 27 billion deal closed this year.
Reuters also licenses text, video, graphics, data and graphics to media companies, which in many cases offer the content for free to consumers, as well as technology companies and businesses. And it generates ad revenue from the website, which attracts approximately 41 million unique visitors every month.
The digital operation is part of its plan for court professionals, which will also include live events, newsletters, channels on streaming TV services Roku and Plex, and on audio through Amazon.com Inc, the company has said.
Thomson Reuters, headquartered in Toronto, invested what several former executives estimated at $ 20 million less than a decade ago to rebuild the website. It pulled the plug on the plan in 2013 because it was “a long way from commercial viability or strategic success,” former Reuters CEO Andrew Rashbass told employees at the time in an internal memo.
A Reuters spokeswoman declined to comment on the investment figure.
The new version of the digital strategy includes a deeper investment in areas such as legal news, where it has added journalists and launched new products, including daily newsletters. It also provides live streams of Reuters events to subscribers.
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