In what can only be seen as an 'interesting' move, Rupert Murdoch has announced that you will have to pay to access The Sun, The Times and News Of The World websites as of next year.
Currently all of these websites offer free access to stories that are in their newspaper equivalents that day, but this is all set to change according to Murdoch.
Speaking to journalists, the owner of News Corporation said: "Quality journalism is not cheap. The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels, but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites."
Difficult year
As for a time-frame for this, according to the Guardian, it will be "this fiscal year".
It will be interesting to see if people pay for the news on the website, and how much the charges will be. Considering you can buy The Sun for a mere 20p, would you really pay more to read the same stories on a website, regardless of its exclusivity?
Murdoch's words seem to be spurred on by a $3.4bn (£2bn) net loss for News Corporation for the financial year to June. This is something that has been put down to restructuring, writedowns and a slump in commercial revenue.
"The past year has been the most difficult in recent history," explained Murdoch. "And our 2009 financial performance clearly reflects the weak economic environment that we confronted throughout the year."
Despite the downturn, Murdoch is confident his 'pay-for' plan will work: "We're certainly satisfied that we can produce significant revenues from the sale of digital delivery of newspaper content," he explained.
Unless every other newspaper service does the same thing, then Murdoch might find it to be tough going.
Via The Guardian
Your comments (11) Click to add a new comment
lovlid
August 11th
11. @ nocolasmerritt.
No, he does not have sole rights to all live premiership matches. For a couple of years he had to give over 46 of those matches to Setanta, and those matches have now gone to ESPN. He is not allowed to have ALL premiership matches if there is someone else wishing to pay for the privilege of showing them.Im almost sure ITV and the BBC both put a bid in at the same time as Setanta.
I disagree on your point about money and information. People have tried to supress information with money for hundreds of years. Murdick will never have the power to do so because nobody trusts him, and never will.
Alert a moderator
nicolasmerritt
August 10th
10. Argh, I misspelled 'one'.
@mbb
The MoTD rights are sold as one of the packages - the BBC bought the rights for MoTD after ITV messed up its footie coverage a few years ago. I don't think the Beeb get a govt pass on it. I think what's getting lost in all the talk about information wanting to be free, is how easy it can be to restrict physical access to storymakers if someone writes a large enough cheque.
Alert a moderator
nicolasmerritt
August 10th
9. @lovlid
Well that may be the case for the US but in the UK, News Corp already has exclusive broadcast rights to the Premiership football as well as a whole host of other formerly free to air sporting events. He decides who broadcasts from the stadium, so it is not really much of a stretch to imagine he could seek the same for match reports, player interviews and associated sporting content. I think a lot of the weberati are missing the point on this - if he is the only won who can report it because he is physically the only one who gets access, then he can charge for it. Sure, a lot of stories can't be controlled in that way - forest fires, elections, whatever - but some can, and I would assume those are the ones he's going to focus on.
Alert a moderator
mbb
August 10th
8. The US First Amendment doesn't really apply here because of its specificity in dealing only with the Government, but I agree with Lovlid that any number of people would step in to halt any attempt by New Corp to be the only place to read/watch football.
As I recall, there's actually a rule (possibly government backed, possible self-regulated) regarding making a certain amount of football free to watch - hence the existence on MoTD and the like. And anyway, we could just read about it on a foreign site, where the rights are different.
Alert a moderator
lovlid
August 8th
7. To try and get any kind of exclusivity for news items of any kind ( unless its a celebs new boob job ) they are going to have to fight off the British government, the European Union and the Americans freedom of speech legislation. Murdick will never get the backing from any of those institutions to hide match reports behind a paywall. And do you think the worlds press would sit back and do nothing? Two things would possibly occur. They could all do the same as murdick and bring on the wrath of the worlds governments and freedom information advocators(?) or lose money hand over fist fighting each other.
The only people who could possibly be dumb enough to pay for this kind of thing anyway, would have to be his readership looking for news on Jodies new boob job.
Alert a moderator
gavin
August 6th
6. m185874 - unfortunately your hopes of not helping News Int making money from you through advertising are misguided! Adblock doesn't stop the ads from loading, it only hides them from view. These websites charge advertisers by the impression not the click.
Sorry to burst your bubble :) Your heart was in the right place though!
I agree with Nick, there is a strong possibility that web content could end up being bid for exclusively, in certainly areas obviously like sports for example. There is nothing regulating this type of activity.
Alert a moderator
Tell us what you think
You need to Log in or register to post comments