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If rumors are to be believed, the Wall Street Journal has been considering abandoning the subscription model for months.

But alas, it’s not to be. Rupert Murdoch announced today that the Wall Street Journal, while expanding its free offerings, would not leave the subscription model. In fact, he stated that:

We are going to greatly expand and improve the free part of the Wall Street Journal online, but there will still be a strong offering (for subscribers) … The really special things will still be a subscription service, and, sorry to tell you, probably more expensive.

The site will continue to operate on a hybrid of advertising and subscription dollars. This decision could be due, at least in part, to reasons cited by estimates earlier this month that the Journal would need twelve times the traffic to break even on impression-based banner advertising if they abandoned the subscription based model altogether.

But will their new model—which will be “probably more expensive” to subscribers while offering more free content—pan out?

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