Murdoch to Web users: Oh, yes, you will pay
In a move that makes him seem a bit like Dr. Evil wanting to be paid one hundred billion dollars for Austin Powers' ransom, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has said that he will charge for all the online content associated with the newspapers and television stations he owns.
Rupert Murdoch, media baron
(Credit: Dan Farber/CBS Interactive)It's a goal that some in the digital-media space will bill as ludicrous--and some as inevitable.
The Financial Times reported the news Thursday, adding that Murdoch had spotted "some good signs of life" in the battered advertising sector.
He's already got most of The Wall Street Journal, which News Corp. acquired two years ago, behind a pay wall. But he also owns the rest of Dow Jones & Company, the Fox television and film empire, the New York Post, and the U.K.'s The Times. News Corp. is also a partner in Hulu, the joint video venture that offers a big chunk of Fox television content (as well as NBC and ABC) for free on the Web.
Robert Iger, the CEO of new Hulu partner Disney, said at a conference last month that he does not believe Web content needs to be offered for free, and that consumers will be willing to pay for it.
"We intend to charge for all our news Web sites," Murdoch said, according to the Financial Times. "If we're successful, we'll be followed by all media."
In late 2007, well before the market collapse last fall, Murdoch had said pretty much the exact opposite, claiming that a free and ad-supported model would be more beneficial than a subscription model for The Wall Street Journal.
Presumably the new paid-content strategy wouldn't apply to News Corp.'s digital-only assets, like social network MySpace.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
Since NBC first began posting shows in their entirety online, ABC quickly followed suit, and the networks have realized that online media is not only growing, but economically viable as well. It was only a matter of time that other mediums, such as Murdochs' print empire would realize that monetization of digital content would happen sooner than later.
Granted, pay-for-content isn't exactly a new prospect. We already have content streaming for paying Netflix subscribers, iTunes movies and television season passes, and premiums on other content. Murdoch is by no means an unintelligent man. Naive? Possibly. And while online media creates only a fraction of the revenue that traditional ad supported broadcasts rake in, these conglomerates want more- in effect, possibly slowing down the acceptance of digital alternatives for the masses.
While we may not have much choice in how this pans out, and who else may support Murdoch and Iger in their quest to raid our pocketbooks, there's always ad-based content. Oh wait, people already fear the personal privacy risks that advertisers such as Google present. Darned if you do, and darned if you don't....
I can't block a request for a credit card.
;-)
http://www.ap.org/ .................they also want get paid
and
http://www.reuters.com/
Reuters have no plan for such charges. (maybe of interest for bloggers using content:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-publish-reuters-copy-on-your-site-for-free-legally-2009-6
As the media crisis continues, more go out of business new opportunities will exist. Many of the current
corporations are bloated organizations anyway with loads of overhead. Slimmer papers, more sensitive
to less ad spending and also consumers wanting less ads could possibly do quite well. Just not everyday
repeating ads people are anyhow not interested to have repeated over and over again.
And here, just to throw it in, an old school journalism advertisement, done around 1940, aimed at students
to become journalists, funny somehow how naive working for a newspaper is presented:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rvBgaxUXrc
Some people say
People have LESS money in this economy. So if something that cost them nothing, now has a price they won't just magically have the money to pay for it. They'll make due without it.
If he plans to charge for Foxnews.com will he do the same for the network? Right now it's part of basic cable/satellite TV. Will he move that to be a premium or Pay channel? I mean aren't those freeloaders too?
People are willing to pay for content as long as that content shows them value. But there just is too much out there competing for a small amount of people willing to pay.
Look at satellite radio, two competing companies and still not enough people willing to pay for it to make them separately and combined a profitable venture. There just isn't enough money out there to support all these websites that are foaming at the mouth dying to start charging for their online content.
Music and video can be sold as single units, because people feel (for example) a song is worth $1, and also because people have always had to pay for music and video. How much do people think the news is worth? Especially since everyone could drop The New York Post and read CNN, or whatever other free digital news source. At least with an ad-based model, people don't have to fork over cash to read the news.
For what it's worth, I already shun sites where I need to sign up to read articles. Why bother, when there is other content for free?
Frankly, the only News Corp site that I use is Sky Sports News and I might actually pay for access to that.
The only way you wouldn't "feel it" is if they found some way to just add it to your internet access bill. I think that's kind of creepy, though, but then the phone companies do it already...
Except people will just stop going to his sites cold-turkey.
So what's the alternative? Companies want use to pay, sure. So why is Leo Laporte successful with a handful of sponsors and tons of donations? Well, those 200,000 average listeners who download, on their own effort, Laporte's content, see it worth, after using the product, a donation or a visit to a sponsor. If Murdoch wants money, perhaps he should see if his content is really worth the money via donation. I'll tell you right now that it's not. Considering I invest in tech. stocks, I get a good deal of info from CBS's CNET and The Register. Usually days, sometimes weeks, ahead of the Wall Street Journal. And if I want a copy of his paper, I just pick one up at my dentist's office, or the local library.
Leo Laporte has the correct approach. Murdoch doesn't.
Specialized content specific to industries and vertical markets, as well as premium content - sure. I think that's something a media company may be able to create a market for, provided that ads are omitted once you do subscribe. That's why the Wall Street Journal has worked out for him.
But I think Murdoch is fantasizing if he thinks that anyone's going to pay to visit foxnews.com to read Bill O'Reilly's latest missive, or visit the front page of American Idol's site.
Let's face it: the paid delivery-on-paper model is broken. The bigger problem is that print media barons are either ill-informed or dirty, greedy bastards (like Uncle Rupert). Poor, poor Tribune is still running in circles online while the rest of its assets, hugely powerful brands, circle a giant drain.
Charge me a nickel a day, and I'll think about it. A penny more, and you can pound sand.
The only way he could increase revenues by charging for free content is by charging ridiculously high prices to the few fellow idiots that want to read his nazi propaganda. Anyone who wants real news will go to a free site, like Google News or CNN, etc.
I don't see the value of paying for that content. The important aspects of a particular news story are the facts, which I can get for free -- if not on line, then on TV. One might argue that having immediate access to say, an "exclusive interview" with an important "news maker" might have some value. But I wouldn't. Sooner or later the relevant facts of that interview, even some sound bites, will be reported elsewhere under fair use rules. Or, even word-of-mouth on the streets. So what if I get those facts a few hours or even a few days later. It's not worth $60 a year or even $12 a year. It really isn't. Not to me anyway. $12 could pay for 2.4 HD On-Demand movies. That does have value -- to me.
Since it will have no impact on my life, I vote that they go ahead with the plan to charge for news. I can honestly say that I do wish them success as it might actually generate new jobs that this country desperately needs. I just don't believe that it will be as successful as they need it to be.
There's so much out there that doesn't cost, so why go to any of his sites? Doesn't make sense to me.
Anyhow you want to charge me for online news, no thanks you can keep it.
- by guilmon14 August 6, 2009 7:56 AM PDT
- the face is people will just somewhere else to look for there online media and Dr. Evil will likely wont be able to by a toothpick with the amount of people that subscribe to him
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