But a good paywall should pay for the journalism that its subscribers are reading, not for a broadcast folly that almost nobody watches. Paywalls are here to stay, and that’s almost certainly a good thing for the economics of the news industry as a whole. If you’re going to spend $420 a year on news, there are much more deserving places to spend it than Bloomberg. But it feels wrong to ask for the TV station’s losses to be borne by readers of the website, very few of whom have any interest in its content, and all of whom have much less ability to pay for those losses than Mike Bloomberg does.īesides, for anyone other than Mike Bloomberg, money is a zero-sum game: If you spend it one place, that means you have less of it to spend somewhere else. The Wall Street Journal’s digital offer starts off with an introductory rate of 1 for the first two months 19.50 a month for a six-month.

The monthly package has a three-month introductory rate of 9.99 per month, or a one-year offer at 340. Bloomberg LP might have some strategic interest in the television station, or it might serve some vanity purpose for Mike Bloomberg personally. Bloomberg’s All Access digital package starts out at 34.99 a month or 415 annually.

You’re not paying for the news you’re reading instead, you’re paying for the television content you’re almost certainly not watching. Which is why, ultimately, the Bloomberg paywall feels much less justifiable than just about any other paywall.

Bloomberg terminal cost per month