Friday, August 07, 2009

Can Murdoch make online newspaper charges work?

Oh dear, he may be a media master, and massive mogul to boot, but the news this morning that Rupert Murdoch is planning to charge for access to the websites for his newspapers, that the Sun, Times and NotW for us in the UK is, to say the least, a very brave move.

It's been tried before of course, and it's failed dismally. I think the FT did it for a while, and the Independent tried, but eventually they all went back to the free model which presumably relies heavily on high traffic coupled with ad revenue.

The question is, if Murdoch goes for it across so many continents, might he has the sheer dominance that means other will start to follow? Perhaps that is the strategy? After all, like his titles or not, they are popular, and depending ont he pricing might it work?

As I say, it;s brave. It's been tried before and hasn't worked. So how it will be different this time I'm not sure.

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