(Reuters) – Reuters News announced on Tuesday that it would roll out digital subscriptions starting this month, joining a crowded market of news organizations that charge for online content.
The Thomson Reuters-owned news agency said visitors will have to pay $1 per week for access to its website, which has been available for free but requires users to register.
The launch follows a three-year delay caused in part by a dispute between Reuters and financial data provider LSEG over whether the paywall would breach their news supply agreement. The pricing is lower than the $34.99 a month Reuters had initially planned to charge in 2021.
The subscriptions will be available first in Canada, followed by parts of Europe and the U.S with plans to expand globally, the news agency said in a statement.
The announcement coincided with the launch of paywall by CNN, which will ask some visitors to its website to pay $3.99 a month for access to its content.
Reuters and CNN enter a crowded market of major news organizations that already charge for their content. Among them, financial news rival Bloomberg.com charges $34.99 per month before discounts, while the Wall Street Journal, which in 1996 became among the first to launch a paywall, charges $38.99.
“This new subscription plan ensures Reuters can expand the reach of its award-winning coverage at an affordable price, while allowing us to further invest in our reporting and products for subscribers,” Reuters President Paul Bascobert said.
Reuters had halted plans for the paywall’s launch in 2021 due to the dispute with LSEG, in what was a setback for its plans to build new sources of revenue and had raised questions about the news agency’s relationship with its biggest customer.
Reuters did not disclose details on whether the dispute was resolved in its statement on Tuesday. LSEG was not immediately reachable.
Refinitiv, which was rebranded as LSEG last year, accounts for about half of Reuters’ revenue. Reuters derives most of its remaining revenue from its media agency operations, as well as its growing events business.
Reuters also licenses text, video, pictures, data and graphics to media companies, which, in many cases, offer the content for free to consumers, as well as to tech companies and corporations. It generates advertising revenue from the website.
In the three months to June 30, Reuters News’ revenue rose 7% on the back of growth in its agency business and a contractual price increase as part of the LSEG agreement.
Refinitiv was part of Thomson Reuters until private equity firm Blackstone Group Inc acquired a majority stake in it in 2018. Blackstone and Thomson Reuters subsequently sold Refinitiv to LSEG, closing the deal in January 2021.
As part of the separation, Refinitiv struck a 30-year agreement with Reuters that guaranteed annual payments of at least $336 million to provide news and editorial content until 2048.
(Reporting by Reuters newsroom; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Anna Driver)