Sony e-reader to offer exclusive News Corp. content

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on December 17, 2009 at 4:19 PM

Sony Corp.'s e-reader will begin offering an exclusive digital version of two News Corp.-owned properties, the financial news service Marketwatch.com and the New York Post, a tabloid, the Japanese company announced today.

A digital version of the Wall Street Journal, also owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is already available on Amazon's Kindle; however, Sony will offer an exclusive daily news update after the markets close, called Wall Street Journal Plus, Agence France Presse reported.

Photo: The New York Times blogs

It's well known that Murdoch has criticised the Kindle, saying Amazon takes more than its share of subscription fees. It has been speculated that News Corp. may walk away from Kindle completely, "but the new 'exclusive agreement for automatic updates on Sony readers appears to be the best counter the company could muster," a BusinessWeek report stated today. On the Kindle, users must manually download the newspaper each morning.

Sony has evidently offered News Corp. a better deal than Amazon. "If it wasn't a better deal I wouldn't be here today," Robert Thompson, editor of the WSJ, told reporters, according to BusinessWeek. Sony has also "addressed" customer information concerns, he added. In the past, News Corp. has also complained about Amazon's policy of concealing subscriber information from content partners.

However, whether it makes sense for readers - even those who prefer print - to choose Marketwatch or Post content on an e-reader is another matter, AllThingsDigital, a News Corp.-owned site and part of the Wall Street Digital network, pointed out:

"The Post is a tabloid that's pretty much designed to be consumed, then tossed away, in the course of a subway ride - and if you want to get it for free on the Web, you can do that too.

"You can also consume all of Marketwatch for free on the Web, where it makes much more sense to do so, since that the [sic] site provides constant updates on ... the market.

"And given the Journal's increasing emphasis on speed and breaking news, you'd think its paying subscribers would want the freshest copy possible. But the Sony Reader version is completely static."