The Economist hopes to create a pricing model that is consistent across all channels as it prepares to launch an iPad/iPhone edition.

The magazine's content was mostly free until last fall, at which time content older than 90 days was put behind a paywall. Now, only subscribers to the print edition can read content from the week's print edition online (now considered "premium content") without paying a fee, writes Mediaweek. Currently, the magazine can be had for $103.50 per year for the print edition, $8 per issue for the audio edition, and $10.49 per month via Kindle.

Testing the Waters

Magazines across the industry are testing ways to monetize online content beyond advertising by charging for certain aspects of it, creating premium web features such as paid clubs, and developing apps for mobile devices, writes MediaBuyerPlanner.

Hearst, for example, is getting into the business of developing apps for the iPhone in a move which the company hopes will be the first step in an eventual offering of thousands of apps, for a fee, that will offer news and photos on a variety of narrow niches.

Another possibility for magazines is to charge for mobile content, while online content remains free. That is an approach Slate Group chairman Jacob Weisberg supports. Weisberg believes that charging for mobile content can be successful, but he believes websites should remain available free of charge.

The Financial Times

Then there is the Financial Times - a media powerhouse almost in a class by itself given that it has manage to stay profitable. Its strategy has been to deploy mixture of online paywalls, increasing subscriptions and cover prices, writes Paid Content.  Since 2007, the cost of a printed copy of the FT has doubled, PC says. The FT also does well with advertising revenues - the FT.com's annual run-rate in terms of online ad revenues is "not far short" of $45 million. Then, PC continued, there's the FT’s 50% ownership of the Economist and the way it profits bolstered the FT in lean years - "a factor that calls to mind Clay Shirky's suggestion that if information doesn’t want to be free, it definitely would like to be cross-subsidized."

Finally, the FT - and the Economist and Wall Street Journal for that matter - cover financial news that has a value, and thus its readers are more willing to pay for it. Also its readers can claim the subscription costs as a tax expense. "Readers have therefore proved loyal despite the dramatic price increases over the past three years both in print and online," PC concludes.