Reuters News (TRI.TO) on Thursday unveiled a new subscription website as part of a comprehensive initiative aimed at legal business professionals.
In addition to targeting its current global readers, the newly revamped Reuters.com hopes to attract professional audiences ready to pay $ 34.99 a month for a deeper level of coverage and data on industry verticals that include business legal, sustainable, health care and automobiles.
Reuters.com will remain free for a preview period, but will require users to register after five stories. It is not clear immediately when it will start charging.
The news division owned by Thomson Reuters now joins a market full of large news organizations that already charge for its content.
Among them, rival financial news Bloomberg.com charges $ 34.99 a month before discounts, while the Wall Street Journal, which in 1996 became the first to launch a pay wall, charges $ 38.99 .
In an emailed statement, Josh London, Reuters marketing director and head of Reuters Professional, described the launch as “Reuters’ biggest digital transformation in a decade”.
He added: “Professionals need direct access to industry knowledge, data and information from expert sources, and Reuters is pleased to offer reliable, unbiased and accurate news coverage through a premium offering.”
Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and newly appointed editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni have stated that the success of the digital and event business is one of their top priorities.
Reuters generates about half of its revenue from its largest customer, financial data specialist Refinitiv.
Refinitiv was part of Thomson Reuters until 2018, when private equity firm Blackstone Group LP bought a majority stake in a deal that valued the business at about $ 20 billion. It was then sold to London Stock Exchange Group Plc on a $ 27 billion total deal that closed that year.
Reuters also licenses text, video, images, data and graphics to media companies, which in many cases offer free content to consumers, as well as technology companies and corporations. And it generates advertising revenue from the website, which attracts about 41 million unique visitors a month.
The digital operation is one of the axes of its plan for court professionals that also includes live events, newsletters, channels on Roku and Plex TV services and audio through Amazon.com Inc., the company reported .
Toronto-based Thomson Reuters invested what several former executives have estimated at $ 20 million less than a decade ago to rebuild the website. He launched the plan in 2013 as it was “far from commercial viability or strategic success,” Andrew Rashbass, a former Reuters CEO, told employees in an internal note at the time.
A Reuters spokeswoman declined to comment on the investment figure.
The new iteration of digital strategy includes a deeper investment in areas such as legal news, where it has incorporated journalists and launched new products, including daily newsletters. It will also offer live replays of Reuters events to subscribers.
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