Rupert Murdoch: “The era of free online news is over”
By Kate Pritchard, published 1 year ago in Internet Business.
As Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation reports a £2bn net loss for the financial year to June, the media mogul vows to shake up the newspaper industry by introducing a pay-per-view model to all his news websites, including the Times, the Sun and the News of the World, by next summer.
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"Quality journalism is not cheap," comments Murdoch, whose business was hit by huge writedowns in the value of its assets, restructuring charges and a dive in commercial revenue. "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.
"I believe that if we're successful, we'll be followed fast by other media."
So, dear readers, should Real Business follow suit? Would you pay to read our online news stories and/or our monthly magazine? Post your views below.
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4 comments.
Anon 1 year ago.
No, I can't see it working unless every news related website does the same thing. Even then most people will not pay for it, especially when you can watch the news for free on one of the 24 hour news channels. Also I can't see the BBC website charging for news articles.
Olly 1 year ago.
The Times and Sun websites already run advertising. If they charge for views, the viewing counts will drop so far that not only will they be bringing in only a tiny amount from pay-per-view, they'll also lose their advertising revenue. Murdoch clearly knows his stuff, but I can't get my head around this.
Peter 1 year ago.
'Quality journalism is not cheap' Pay-per-view for The Sun, eh? No thanks
Catherine Woods 1 year ago.
Maybe Rupert knows something we don't?! I'll be interested to see how many other news organisations follow suit but agree that the BBC, at least, is hardly going to charge for reading articles.