The Wall Street Journal will raise its weekday newsstand price from $1 to $1.50, starting July 16, the newspaper’s parent, Dow Jones & Company, said yesterday.
The subscription price will not change, a company spokesman said, so more than 90 percent of The Journal’s buyers will not be affected.
The weekday newsstand price has not risen since April 2001. In that time, newspaper costs have soared and advertising revenue has dropped. The newsstand price of The Journal’s weekend paper, which was introduced in 2005 and is published on Saturdays, is already $1.50.
Many newspapers have been reluctant to charge more, which can drive down sales, and The Journal already has one of the highest newsstand prices in the country.
The Journal is also one of the few American newspapers with a growing circulation; it has more than two million subscribers a day (including a portion of its online subscribers), and is second only to USA Today. Industry analysts say that with a desirable product and an affluent audience, The Journal does not risk losing many readers to a price increase.
