Demonstrating the device's focus as a large screen for reading (and moving images), The Wall Street Journal has announced its dedicated iPad app has added 3,200 subscribers.

Not many compared to the over 450,000 iPads sold perhaps but it's more impressive in terms of $200 plus yearly or $17.29 monthly cost of such a subscription.

In a brave attempt to enforce premium pricing, the WSJ's iPad subscription costs almost twice as much as the standard print and online service.

More than 30,000 existing WSJ subscribers have downloaded the app too, although how many of them have signed up to the new service hasn't been revealed.

Business news is a business

Alongside the UK's Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal is one of the few print publications to successfully charge for online content, thanks to its wealthy, and no doubt expense-account-wielding, audience.

Targetting a less well-heeled reader, US Today announced its free iPad app has been downloaded 175,000 times, although this activity will surely shrink substantially when it starts to charge for content via a subscription model on July 4.

Providing a comparative figure ABC's iPad app has been downloaded 212,000 times with 680,000 TV episodes streamed.

[source: Business Insider (1), (2)]