The company, which also owns UK national newspapers The Times and The Sun, is looking to better reap the benefits of articles and reports that appear on the social network. In fact, the CEO had attacked on digital companies like Facebook and Google earlier at the same conference. Thomson's comments in the past suggest the deal could involve bundling content from its properties based on topic: a dedicated sports subscription, or perhaps business.

Subscriptions could offer publishers an extra source of cash, as many of them struggle to pull in digital advertising bucks: an area that's dominated by Facebook and Google. As Bloomberg notes, the WSJ avoided working with Facebook on live video, and has been reticent to use the social network's "Instant articles" feature to post fast-loading content that resides inside Facebook's pages. It looks like the newspaper's owner had their own plans in mind.