News Corp boss Murdoch to close the pay gate on internet content
October 8, 2009
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has hinted that he may charge fees to anyone wishing to read his numerous newspapers online - including the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and Times of London.
Murdoch has long been resistant to the ad-supported model of providing news content, and, for the most part, experts say that his judgment has been sound. Newspaper web sites are still failing to turn a profit, even after they were among the first businesses to wholeheartedly adopt the internet as a new model. But, as Michael Wolff reports in Vanity Fair, Murdoch's plan to impose subscription fees on readers for all content on all web sites in his media empire has industry experts deeply confused.
Wolff cites Emily Bell, long-time runner of the Guardian newspaper's web site as describing for-pay general interest online news as "[r]ubbish…bonkers," and "a form of madness." Wolff and many experts say that the paid-content model of online newspaper publishing has been tried before and failed miserably each time.
But Murdoch, whose company is still reeling from heavy losses suffered in the early parts of 2009, appears determined to purse a different course.
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