Sony, in a move against Amazon, has landed a deal with News Corp to distribute both the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal on its e-reader.
The Sony Reader will be offering paid subscriptions to both newspapers at different price points.
A normal subscription to the Wall Street Journal will cost $14.99 with an option to pay $5 more monthly for a summary of the paper. The New York Post will cost $9.99 monthly.
Sony and News Corp will also be offering access to some MarketWatch information for $10.99 monthly.
The <3 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
While the prices sound steep, after all they near the noraml cost of the papers, but cost nothing to deliver, it does seem odd that News Corp has selected Sony to work with. Amazon is generally considered to be the market leader, both in terms of technology and units sold.
My best guess is that News Corp will be announcing a similar deal within the next month, and that Sony paid a price to get access first, to put at least a chink in the armor of Amazon.
That aside, the price points are far too high. Given that the NY Post costs as little as $3.50 weekly for actual delivery, charging 71% of that for a free-to-make digital copy is foolish. I would suspect that $5 monthly for a mobile digital newspaper subscription is the price point that we will move to.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.