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When News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) outspoken Chairman Rupert Murdoch reversed himself recently and declared that all his company's web properties would soon move to a fee model, were you perplexed? After all, Murdoch runs one of the largest media empires on the planet. Combine that with a conditioned customer used to getting almost all content for free and yes, we have a problem.
Murdoch's empire just suffered an advertising meltdown with the rest of the world, with News Corp. declaring a huge decline in ad revenue for its latest quarter. Just a few years ago, Murdoch was toying with the idea of dropping the fee for looking at the Wall Street Journal's articles and columns. He's done a 180 here and wants to bring the Journal's pay-per-use model to just about every web property his company owns while he shouts "quality journalism is not cheap" from the rooftops of Fox News.
This won't work. While many customers will continue paying the Wall Street Journal's online subscription prices, Murdoch won't be able to just start charging fees for all his websites. The competition is staring right at him and will gleefully take away disgusted customers as they flock away when fees start entering into the picture. The internet is free (well, at least most content is), and going from free to fees would never work -- even with News Corp.'s impressive array of news organizations.
Would you pay to see segment reruns of American Idol or to visit FoxNews.com? I thought so.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-10-2009 @ 5:17PM
IHeartUrbanPlanning said...
I am really going to miss the Daily Telegraph... that was a GREAT website, I am going to miss it because I would NEVER pay to read it. No matter how good it is.
Most if the media think its a good idea (you can see clips of them praising the idea below) but that's because they are completely biased since it is their livelihood we are discussing.
http://www.newsy.com/videos/rupert_s_new_rules
This just cant work.