Why I like Being an Internet Man

The NY Post reports on Business, just like sports;

“The head of The Wall Street Journal’s empire, Peter Kann, could be sweating over his job, again. Earnings plunged by 54 percent at the newspaper’s parent Dow Jones & Co., with its fledgling online operations earning more money for the first time than the flagship Journal and the weekly Barron’s.

Feinseth said the company “doesn’t earn enough to cover the cost of the capital they use — its average profit is 4.2 percent but the annual cost of its capital is 8.4 percent.

“They’re having a much harder time than other media,” he said. “Its growth rate is lower than other media in the sector — at 5.4 percent vs. a 7.7 growth rate for the sector.

“They’re simply losing market share to other media. Print publishing is not a profitable business for Dow Jones anymore,” said Feinseth. Kann is hoping that the company’s long-range growth also comes in online publishing, which has profit margins at least 20-fold higher than print.

The Wall Street Journal Online is signing up thousands of new subscribers, up 5.2 percent for the quarter, to a total of 731,000.

But some readers say they’re just switching from buying the more expensive print editions of the Journal and Barron’s to the lower-priced online versions.

One market watcher said, “Instead of paying about $356 a year for the print version of the Journal and Barron’s, I’m gettng it online for $84 a year.”