The Wall Street Journal will stick with Apple News because it helps ‘introduce new readers’

Apple News+ is one of Apple’s many different subscription services, so the company would like very much for folks to fork over their money on a regular basis to access its content. Lucky for those who are signed up, The Wall Street Journal doesn’t plan on abandoning the platform any time soon.

According to the New York Post, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson has confirmed that the Wall Street Journal will be sticking around with the Apple News and Apple News+ service for the foreseeable future. Why? Because the app and service has proven to “introduce new readers” to the publication up to this point. Tomson says it’s a “genuinely different audience”, which includes more women than men, and far more young people.

That Apple News partnership allows us to focus on that tier of content and bring in a significantly new audience that we would hope to graduate to a paid WSJ subscription over time,” Thomson said in an earnings call last week. “And it is a genuinely different audience. It’s actually, of late, more women than men. For The Wall Street Journal ­itself, it’s more men than women.

Some folks out there might be interested in hearing from the News Corp. CEO regarding the future of the WSJ‘s availability in Apple News and News+ because of what happened with the New York Times earlier this year. That publication decided it didn’t want to keep up the partnership with Apple and ultimately pulled all of its articles off of Apple News+ entirely. At the time, Apple said that the NYT wasn’t posting all that much content to begin with. So whether or not that was a big loss for Apple News+ subscribers came down to individual preference.

The NYT‘s CEO Mark Thompson has also gone on the record as saying that many publications out there should be wary of signing up with Apple News+ for various reasons, including potentially giving too much power to Apple in the news industry, as well as a loss in subscriber revenue. Basically, the NYT wants people to sign up for its content directly on its website, rather than team up with Apple in any capacity (so Apple doesn’t get any cut of the proceeds either).

Now, it’s worth noting here that Apple is making a not insignificant change to iOS 14 and macOS 11 Big Sur as it relates to Apple News+. We reported earlier this week that with the next major updates to the mobile and desktop operating systems, Apple News+ is automatically going to redirect traffic away from websites that are partnered with Apple News/News+ and open up the app directly. So, this may be an issue to some publishers once those platforms launch in the future — which may just be more of the same.

However, as it stands right now, News Corp. is sticking with Apple News and News+ for the foreseeable future.

Are you an Apple News+ subscriber? If so, how are you liking the service?