News Corp will charge for newspaper websites
Sign of things to come ??
Will I have to pay to access The Sun website ?
Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a "malfunctioning" business model.
Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal's experience," he said.
Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, he replied: "We're absolutely looking at that." Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin "within the next 12 months‚" adding: "The current days of the internet will soon be over."
Source : The Guardian
Newspapers have to make money, and online advertising revenue just isn't sufficient.
I don't 'like' the idea, but it's one that will gain traction over time.
I've always wondered how come newspapers are surviving, while giving it all on the website for free. It turned out they're not :/. A bad trend though
"The larger grows the island of my knowledge, the
longer stretch the shores of my ignorance."
William Blake