Times are tough for poor Rupert, so he has decided the time is coming to charge people to read his news:
Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation‘s newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a ”malfunctioning” business model.
Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an “epochal” debate over whether to charge. “That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal’s experience,” he said.
Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, he replied: “We’re absolutely looking at that.” Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin “within the next 12 months‚” adding: “The current days of the internet will soon be over.”
(emphasis added)
We have heard about the demise of free information on the internet for years. Does Murdoch think he can really change it? How many “exclusives” does any News Corp site have that people are interested in?
I have addressed this before and given my glimpse into what will happen. If a story is big enough, some blogger will pay to subscribe to that site. After that every other blogger will link to that one blogger. So the story will get out and with only one subscription.
Of course if a story is that big then you can bet some other news source will pick it up. Murdoch thinks he can change the internet, but the internet might just end up breaking him.