Janet CollinsAn End to Free Online News?
August 6th 2009 22:22
Newspaper proprietors have long been complaining about their provision of news stories to the public for free. After all, since so much news has been available online, newspaper sales have been in severe decline.
Chief executive of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, now wants to reverse the whole free online news system and start charging for access to websites. To provide quality news, he says, is costly and providing them on line for free just isn’t viable.
In Australia, we may tend to think of Murdoch’s newspapers as tabloids mainly and many would hardly rate this as “quality journalism” but even in Australia he does have “The Australian” in his stable. In the United States, News Corp has “The Wall Street Journal” and in the UK one of theirs is “The Times”.
Free online news was probably something that was done in the name of competition and even though it has become quite a convenient way for us all to catch up on news at any minute of the day, it has not been good for business. News Corp lost $3.4bn in the year ending in June.
"The Wall Street Journal" already charges for access to content and Murdoch believes that by charging a minimal cost for access to news that quality will continue and he also predicts other newspapers will follow suit.
Plunging advertising revenues have hurt most newspaper publishers, so there is a good chance many of them will follow in News Corp’s direction, particularly if it they can make a profit by doing so.
Murdoch’s plan is that charges will be introduced by June 2010. It is a brave move. So many of us have grown accustomed to all our news supplied to us on the internet for free, it’swill be very difficult to get used to paying for it.
I have to confess, I don’t really think you can blame him. It is a bit much to expect any business to give anything away for nothing for something that they pay lots of money to have produced.
What do you think? Should we get our news for free?
Sourced: www.reuters.com, www.bbc.co.uk
Image credit: www.businessweek.com
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Comment by Norm
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The newspaper will go down like the stone tablet.
Not that easily.
Comment by Janet Collins
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Maybe radio news will become a lot more popular!
Thanks for dropping by!
Comment by Morgan Bell
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Comment by Randy Inman
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Comment by Janet Collins
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What - no ads at all? Would that be by choice or is is that his sites don't attract advertising?
Comment by Janet Collins
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I know they do cause clutter but I still like sitting down and reading a newspaper. I like the set out and knowing where to find my favourite sections. Over the years I have gradually read more of the news online but on the weekends especially I still enjoy reading a newspaper.
Even so, I would pay for it online.
Thanks for dropping in.
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