Reuters News (TRI.TO) unveiled a new subscription site on Thursday as part of a comprehensive initiative aimed at business professionals.
In addition to targeting its current global reader, the recently revamped Reuters.com hopes to attract professional audiences ready to pay $ 34.99 a month for deeper coverage and industry vertical data, which includes legal business, sustainable, healthcare and cars.
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.
Thomson Reuters’ news division now joins a crowded marketplace of large news organizations that already charge for their 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 screen, charges $ 38.99.
In an emailed statement, Josh London, director of marketing, Reuters and head of Reuters Professional, called the launch “Reuters’ biggest digital transformation in ten years.”
He added: “Professionals need direct access to industry knowledge, data and information from expert sources, and Reuters is pleased to offer our coverage of reliable, unbiased and accurate news through a premium offering.”
Reuters President Michael Friedenberg and newly appointed editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni have said that the success of the digital business and events is one of their top priorities.
Reuters generates about half of its revenue from its largest customer, financial data specialist Refinitiv.
It was finally part of Thomson Reuters until 2018, when a majority stake was acquired by private equity firm Blackstone Group LP in a deal that valued the business at about $ 20 billion. It was then sold to the London Stock Exchange Group Plc in a $ 27 billion deal, which ended this year.
Reuters also licenses text, video, images, data and graphics to media companies, which in many cases provide free content to consumers, as well as technology companies and corporations. And it generates advertising revenue from the site, which attracts about 41 million unique visitors a month.
The digital operation is an aspect of its plan for court professionals, which also includes live events, newsletters, streaming channels for Roku and Plex TV services and audio through Amazon.com Inc., the company said.
Toronto-based Thomson Reuters invested what many former executives estimated at $ 20 million less than a decade ago to rebuild the website. It ended the plan in 2013 because it was “far from commercial viability or strategic success,” former Reuters CEO Andrew Rashbass told employees in an internal note since then.
A Reuters spokeswoman declined to comment on the investment.
The new iteration 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 will also provide subscribers with live streams of Reuters events.
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