Livemint partners with WSJ; offers subscription service

Livemint, the digital news portal by HT Digital Streams, has gone partially behind the paywall. The news site will now offer select content on its portal behind the paywall determined by user propensity towards content.

HT Media has partnered with the Wall Street Journal and will be bundling their content with its own news offering which will be available to readers via a subscription service. The subscription service is being offered in plans ranging from Rs 999 to Rs 2599. The e-paper of the English daily will also go behind a paywall.

Several digital portals are following this trend by offering their digital content as part of a subscription service. The Hindu, The Hindu BusinessLine, The Indian Express, Business Standard and globally the New York Times are publishers who are monetizing news content via subscriptions.

For several quarters the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) reported that digital news readership has been growing while print readership has been shrinking. Some believe that digital readership is growing at the cost of print readership especially for the English dailies. This has led to several English dailies offering their digital content behind the paywall.

Livemint is currently offering its readers a 15 day free trial of the epaper after which it expects loyal readers to become subscribers.