Rupert Murdoch plans to charge you to read his online newspapers
By Dave Parrack
Newspapers aren’t as big of a business as they once were. Advertising revenues are down, and readerships are dwindling, thanks in part to the availability of up-to-the-minute news on the Web, including online versions of the print newspapers themselves. Could charging for these sites be a solution to the problem? Rupert Murdoch thinks so.
News Corporation is a vast media empire with Rupert Murdoch at its center. An Australian by birth, Murdoch has built global business which now includes Fox News, Twentieth Century Fox, BSkyB, and newspapers all around the world.
News Corp recently announced its quarterly earnings and they aren’t good. Profits were down 47 percent to $755 million with the company’s newspaper division taking a huge hit. Year-on-year first quarter earnings dropped from $216 million to just $7 million. All of which has made Rupert Murdoch look at alternate ways of making money.
According to The Guardian, Murdoch held a conference call with reporters and analysts to discuss the financial results and made some rather controversial points about the Internet. What he said seems to suggest that the Web sites of News Corp newspapers such as The Sun and The Times will no longer be free to read.
Murdoch claimed, “That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal’s experience.” When asked if charging for the online versions of the company’s British newspapers he said, “We’re absolutely looking at that,” and it could happen “within the next 12 months.” Finally, he made the pronouncement that, “The current days of the Internet will soon be over.”
The idea of charging for online news seems completely at odds with how I use the Web, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. While Murdoch may like the idea of charging a fee every time someone wants to read online content from one of his esteemed publications, I really can’t see it working in reality.
The newspapers and publications that have got away with charging are those with a precise niche or that appeal to a certain demographic. Would such a scheme really work for normal, everyday newspapers which have the same coverage as a host of others? Why pay for something you can get for free from an alternative source?
Murdoch is a canny businessman who, love him or hate him, usually makes the right call. But on this instance, I think he’s living in cloud-cuckoo land.
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May 9th, 2009
Can he nit Google (or check his own paper’s reports) what happened when NYT tried the same thing?
May 9th, 2009
Most of the on line premium schemes either died or went free.
It’s difficult to see a general newspaper being able to make it work. You can build a homepage to tweak your own sources and interests far better than a traditional source.
This charging for Internet access to content was fought and decided almost a decade ago. Someone needs to clue Murdoch all he will accomplish is driving eyeballs away from his websites and net even lower profits.