Murdoch claims 64,000 iPad subscribers for Wall Street Journal

While the UK press has effectively put a blocker on the BBC's free news app for the time being, on the other side of the Atlantic, Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is going from strength to strength on iPad.

According to the paper's latest figures revealed during parent company News Corporation's Q1 financial call more than 'active' 64,000 subscribers are now on board with the Wall Street Journal app.

That's surprising as an initial 3,200 subscriber base was reported back in mid-April. It's assumed Murdoch was combining figures of new iPad subscribers with existing WSJ subscribers who have added it to their existing paper and web deals for free.

It also may include some people who have downloaded the app for the free two week trial period but are yet to pull their creditcards details.

If not, considering the monthly fee of $17.29, it's a very impressive number.

Money, money, money

Indeed, because the subscriptions are signed up in-app via the paper's own system rather than Apple's set-up, Murdoch was able to boast that, unlike with Amazon's Kindle, "we keep 100 percent of the revenue from the iPad".

If such success is replicated across the press, iPad could become something of a saviour for papers in the States and, indeed, Europe when the platform launches in May.

Newspaper circulation has largely been in decline ever since the advent of online news services, but an ever-increased iPad userbase could give large sections of the press a lifeline in the years to come.

[source: Mobile Entertainment]