Murdoch to charge for news website access

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

5. There's no such thing as exclusive access to news. It'll never work.

4. Who is to say Murdoch won't bid (and get) exclusive print/web publication rights for Premiership games?

Stick that behind a paywall, and let's see who would and wouldn't want to pay.

3. This is a dead-cert way for News International to lose any advertising revenue that these sites generate - people will simply not use them.

(Not that they get any advertising revenue from me anyway, being a Firefox user with AdBlocker Plus installed! <grin>)

2. Firstly, I challenge the fact that 'News Corp.' and 'Quality journalism' appear in the same sentence, let alone the same article.

Secondly, people will just go elsewhere - the BBC, for example, will always be free for UK users as long as their web costs are integrated with the license fee and rival newspapers will simply continue to offer better journalism for nowt to steal NC's users.

People have a hard time these days bringing themselves to pay for something over the internet unless they're either getting something sent too them in the post or are allowed to download a file.

1. I am sure his plan is way savvier than just putting all his content behind a paywall.

Look at Sky. You can get the news for free but you pay for sport. I can see a day where if you want to read a match report/see pictures/video of a Premiership game, you have to be a subscriber to his websites.

Who is going to provide alternatives to that editorial package if Murdoch owns all the rights/access to pitchside? The odd blogger will write their own reports, sure, but only Murdoch will be able to put a complete package together.