"Goodbye."
Posted on 05/08/2009 8:15:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) – As US newspapers shrivel up and die, an unlikely figure is emerging as their potential savior: News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch.
The much-villified Australian-born media tycoon is preparing to battle against the practice many hold largely responsible for newspapers' current plight -- the "original sin" of giving away their content for free online.
The 78-year-old Murdoch announced this week that the days of free are over.
He said he planned to begin charging readers of the websites of News Corp. newspapers "within the next 12 months," testing the scheme "first on some of our stronger ones.
"We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content, and it is clear to many newspapers the current model is malfunctioning," said Murdoch, whose newspaper holdings include The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times of London, the Sun and The Australian, among others.
The Wall Street Journal online already requires a subscription fee but newspaper owners across the United States will be closely watching as Murdoch bucks the conventional wisdom and extends a pay wall to other publications.
Murdoch himself is a late convert to the notion of making readers pay online, having planned before buying the Journal two years ago to do away with the subscription system in a bid to increase traffic to wsj.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Go ahead. It’ll be the final nail in the coffin of the newspapers.
No problem we’ll all just get assigned to buying subscriptions to various news sources then we’ll just pool them...”somewhere.”
> The 78-year-old Murdoch announced this week that the days of free are over.
That’s not what Obama promised me.
Yes, Bam Bam promised free healthcare! Newsparers can’t be like brain surgery! Most newspapers are brainwashing!
I already pay to get content. I subscribe to the WSJ. I would pay for foxnews.com. I doubt I would pay for the NYT. Despite what others have posted here, content costs SOMEBODY to create. Whether its news, movies, music, or books the creation of the content is not done from the good will of one’s heart - it is generally done to earn a living.
There is no entitlement to the news that somebody writes, no constitutional grant of access to free movie downloads, or free music. Just because it’s the Internet doesn’t make it free.
When you bought your computer do you think Microsoft GAVE you the operating system? No - you paid for it.
I bet those who think that everything on the web should be free pay for People magazine, probably drop a couple bucks each month for sports illustrated too.
The reason most of the content on the web now is junk is because it’s free. You want good content then pay for it.
Do you work for free? Why do you expect people who work for newspapers to?
I pay for a print subscription to The Oklahoman so I can have access to their archives on line which I have used quite a bit.
Murdoch should stick to “When Celebrities Attack.”
If newspapers don't want the fruit of their labor to go out for free, then they shouldn't put it online. They should only print the paper and force people to buy the paper to read the contents.
But they went online and put their work online. Given the choice, people took the one that was free.
But most readers don't care for newspapers any more, because they are so biased.
So, they'll visit the sites to catch the headlines and some details — for free.
If Murdoch thinks that he can wrap those stories behind a price, all I'm saying is that I don't think people will pay.
I won't. I hate the newspapers and their leftist bias. I hope the NYT and the LA Times and 9 out 10 of them go out of business.
"Goodbye."
The other aspect of the issue is advertising. News web sites sell ad space. Free readership means more readers. More readers means site owners can charge more for their ad space, generating more revenue. I would imagine on a site like Drudge, with its millions of daily readers, ads cost a
pretty penney. If Drudge were to charge subscriptions, I would speculate readrship would drop quite a bit.
“Murdoch leads charge to get readers to pay online”
More power to you Murdoch.
I believe it will backfire since the web is full of alternatives to paid sites, but go ahead and try. We’ll all be waiting anxiously to see what happens.
lawl
I remember the early days of the net, and that's how alot of these sites did it, and it didn't last long. I even remember ESPN being an all-pay site for a short while until they realized they were getting their lunch taken away by the Yahoo folks and others who would do it for free.
Well said.
good luck with all that
That’s exactly right and that’s exactly why this won’t work and why it didn’t before. The internet ad business is far more lucrative than fish wrap ads I would imagine, and places like Yahoo and Google and as you mentioned, Drudge, are big reasons why it won’t work.
I don’t and won’t pay to read ‘’newspaper’’ on-line. Stick it NYT.
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