back to article Murdoch says Page 3 won't be free from next year

Rupert Murdoch will refashion the internet in his own image over the next year, as News Corp begins to start charging for content. The media giant has also warned Amazon over its terms and conditions for the Kindle, after revealing financial figures for what it described as its "most difficult year in recent history." For the …

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  1. Marky W
    Megaphone

    Oh Noes!

    No Page 3! If only there was another source of topless women on the internet!

    Pff. Whatever.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahaha...

    ...paying for that crap....aahahahha...._weep_

    WHY would anyone but the incredibly hard of thinking do that, exactly?!?!

    Still, have to admire their optimism.

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. James 5
    Grenade

    My heart bleeds...

    .. for poor old NewsCorp.

    Welcome to the real world.

    I believe that in Japan people who headed up a failure (massive loss like this) literally fell on there swords. Suggest Murdoch considers doing same....

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why does Fox hate America?

    I once read the Sunday Times could afford to give away the paper based on the advertising. It seems to me that he can't get advertising if he doesn't have readers, so the subscriptions needs to pay their way.

    It would be nice to see the digger go out of business, his media seems to push the Murdoch agenda which is often at odds with everyones wider interests. Why *does* Fox hate America?

  6. Ian Michael Gumby
    FAIL

    Murdoch will further face losses.

    Pay for Page3? Sorry, its nice to pop in and see some cute girl, but not worth paying for it.

    The reason people pay for WSJ is that the WSJ has articles that are only in their print and on their site and the articles have value.

    With news print reducing staff and relying more on AP or other news feeds for their content, the value of 'for pay' content is diminished.

    Unless you have a site that provides unique content which has value to a large enough population? Forget-about-it!

    Total FAIL

  7. Efros
    Thumb Down

    Good luck with that one Rupe

    Paying for online access to the WSJ is slightly different to doing the same for access to the Currant Bun. Seems the Dirty Digger can't squeeze enough money out of people these days so he has to try and rewrite the rules, I wonder if he will learn before or after the hit count on the currantbun.com remains static for a week

  8. System 10 from Navarone
    WTF?

    The Sun and Good Reporting

    "An industry that gives away its content is cannibalizing its ability to do good reporting," Murdoch said.

    ...then went on to say that for this reason "The Sun" would not be given away online?!?

    I can understand people paying for expert or specialist content, like with the Financial Times, but paying for 'news' about soap operas and reality TV 'stars' - who in their right mind would pay for that crap?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Newscorp websites all going to charge?

    That's the best news I've seen in days.

  10. rincewind
    WTF?

    Oh dear

    I'll be damned if im going to pay for news on the internet. Imagine if The Reg started charging......wait no dont!

  11. Bod

    Meh

    There's so much news content out there, I'll just go somewhere free than pay for Sun / Times content online. Big deal.

    Most people don't want to sign up for such sites I expect anwyay. They just see a link to an article, click on it and if it says you need to sign up to read it, they'll go somewhere else.

    Can't see how he expects to make money out of it this way more than through traditional advertising.

    The real question though is how News Corp finances will affect Sky. If the subs start going up, I'll drop to Freeview/Freesat (but what's the betting that Sky News becomes a pay channel?).

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Profits down

    TV (ie Sky satellite etc) subscriptions down

    Newspaper sales down

    Profits down. No thinking required.

    Now why are they dropping? Is it

    a) global recession - less in the punters pocket for Sky1 and the "currant bun"

    b) content is rubbish

    Discuss.

    PS you forgot the third element of Rupert's strategies, he's really rather old and past it and doesn't know what he's doing anymore.

  13. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

    Bigist tits

    Well it’s probably about to get worse now that Rupert has employed the disgraced Ex-Teflon Ex-Taoiseach Bertie “the money I got was only a dig-out from my friends” Ahern as a sports writer for the screws of the world. Ahern’s unique style of talking has descened in to popular culture as “Bertiespeak”. Here’s an example:-

    "It is not correct, and if I said so, I was not correct -- I cannot recall if I said it, but I did not say, or if I did, I did not mean to say it -- that these issues could not be dealt with until the end of the Mahon Tribunal."

    Should make for an interesting sports column

    Now that I think of it, maybe Murdoch should put Ahern on page three; Ahern is certainly one of the biggest tits Ireland has ever seen

  14. Tom 15

    People won't buy this...

    This will weaken the online presence and Murdoch's publications, which can only be a good thing.

  15. raving angry loony
    Grenade

    good luck with that

    Good luck with that. Given what Murdoch has turned his so-called "news" papers into, I'm probably better off getting my "news" from any one of a dozen bloggers. They'll be more accurate, for starters. They'll probably be providing a more balanced and reliable view of the world as well. This is the Murdoch that has slowly (or quickly) turned most of his papers into print versions of Fox News after all. I wouldn't pay for it.

    Murdoch obviously learned from Asper, the one infamous for stating that newspapers weren't in the news business, they were in the "selling soap" business.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I cried my eyes out (not)

    Aw, did poor widdle Woopie only make $200 million profit then? What a bleeding shame. I'd cry in sympathy if I could just stop laughing for a moment.

    Next reaction: make a quick mental list of "content" that Woopie controls that might possibly, under some circumstances, be of actual value.

    Next reaction: nothing *at all*??? How can such a huge global corporation produce nothing of any value, year in year out?

    Fourth and last reaction: oh well, too bad. Now where was I?

  17. El Richard Thomas
    WTF?

    Missing part of the quote

    According to the BBC article on this story, that "cannibalising" sentence starts "Quality journalism is not cheap". WTF would Murdoch know about "Quality journalism"?

  18. Doug Glass
    Go

    Can't See It

    I don't pay to read his sites now (never even visited them I know of) and I damn sure wont now. He chooses to charge; I choose not to buy. Simple.

  19. Clay Landis
    FAIL

    Dinosaur?

    Aww, grandpa doesn't like "adjusting to changes"? He can charge whatever he wants but his BS won't make a nickle. Even the idiots that follow his propaganda won't pay a sub fee.

    DIAF Rupert

  20. EddieD

    So what?

    I can't remember looking at any of their websites, and probably never will. There are plenty of good, free news sources, that actually have news - e.g. BBC. There are plenty of blogger sites to expose for free, if you want that sort of thing, the excesses of the D-Z list celebrities. And being the internet, why stop at just breasts when every form of naked skin can be available at no cost.

    The dirty digger can charge if he wants, but I really don't think that it will impact my lifestyle.

  21. The Cube
    Thumb Up

    Great news! Evil Murdoch can keep his content

    Let's face it most of the Murdoch empire is propoganda not journalism anyway, Rupe would never let an inconvenient fact or 'integrity' get in the way of a bit of his patented nut-jobbery.

    Rupert: Please, please, please, please start charging for Fox, the Sun etc. etc.

    As for all of those expecting it to bugger the Murdoch cash machine and be a bad business plan don't forget how effective Murdoch has been with his other assets. Just regard his newspapers as being a new element in his "Stupid Tax" for all the people too dumb to realise why they shouldn't pay it.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What does Murdoch know ...

    ... about good reporting? I hope his empire sinks without trace.

  23. Greg J Preece

    This could be awesome

    If he charges and other people don't, the morons who actually believe anything his "news" outlets put out might look elsewhere for their info!

  24. MinionZero
    FAIL

    Bye Murdoch, you are old news.

    Murdoch is a dinosaur (in his case, a narcistic-o-saur).

    One of the core concepts for networks like the Internet is that they can route around blockages and damage. That means no one can control information flow on a network as it simply routes around it. That is the same when people look for information. (The only way the old guard could stop it is with full on global Big Brother and they are trying).

    So Murdoch wants to restrict access. He can try as much as he likes to get old dinosaur news organizations on his side, fearful of becoming extinct, but the more he tries to control and block content, the more he creates a pressure for change away from that control. People will simply move to free sources of information. People seeking news route around his kind of control.

    If Murdoch really wants to see the future he should learn about computational Journalism, because in the next decade there is going to become ever more sources of free information available through computational Journalism. The trick then will be to create sites which attract viewers with interesting aggregate collections and interpretations of the free news. Sites with some personality which attract like minded people. But its going to be free information regardless of Murdoch's wishes. These rich control freaks can no longer corral people into controlling what they read like the old days of the media. They need content to attract people. Forcing people to pay no longer works, people simply move on and the old dinosaurs become extinct.

    News organizations are not going to become extinct. All that will become extinct is their control freak attitude of controlling what people read and forcing people to pay for that content. The News organizations that attract customers will get advertising and other incomes like in some cases merchandising etc.. while the old narcistic control freak tactic companies become extinct.

    The sooner the better. Bye Murdoch.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    Ha ha ha ha ha

    "...ability to do good reporting," Murdoch said.

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    (untitled)

    It would be a shame if this news monopoly was lost...

  27. OkKTY8KK5U

    This should be amusing...

    ...completely irrespective of whether anything Murdoch's empire barfs out has any quality, integrity, or accuracy, he isn't going to make everyone else change just because he doesn't like it. Since when has that actually worked? If he starts charging for content, someone will develop a bypassing mechanism (like the New York TImes password generator), or the internet will simply continue its already-underway switchover from "news sites slanted in favor of my prejudices" to "blogs slanted in favor of my prejudices." And Americans with brains will continue to get their news about their own country from news outlets located in other countries.

  28. Jon Winter 1
    Pint

    Sky

    Why is it that the more a NewsCorp product costs, the more useless it is? I already ditched the HD part of my Sky subscription because there is nothing at all worth watching on anything apart from BBC HD and I'll be ditching Sky altogether when I move house next month. I see absolutely no reason to pay £17 a month when all I watch is the free to air channels. For all its hundreds of channels and half-decent new GUI, there really is nothing at all I'd consider watching on ANY of Sky's channels apart from the ones like BBC and Ch4 you can get free through the aerial. And I'm damned if I'm continuing to fund the Evil Empire just to be allowed to record TV on a Sky + box. If News Corp starts charging for even more of its dross, good riddance to it.

  29. Ian Ferguson
    Coffee/keyboard

    Meh heh heh

    As they say on Slashdot; "...and nothing of value was lost."

    Mind you, there is one subscription system which DOES seem to work online; adverts on the free version, pay for the ad-free version. I'm surprised more places don't do this (The Reg, I'm looking at you); they may only get a trickle of subscriptions, but it's not giving up the core advertising business, not crippling links, OR turning away readers who only want things for free.

  30. Steven Jones

    BBC

    I think you can expect that the government and regulatory bodies to come under even more pressure over the BBC's free internet services. There's no doubt that a combination of free services from the BBC and the Internet/Google siphoning off advertising revenue spells really bad trouble for the independent media sector (debatable if you include Murdoch's empire in that little list). It's already the case that local papers are really disappearing and that quality, independent reporting is in very short supply. ITV are losing money, Channel 4 is also in a dire financial position. I don't think it is good for the country to have just a couple of major outlets in the form of a News International/BBC duopoly. However, that is the way we are heading.

    It's not a pretty picture for journalism in this country. Yes, there are some very good bloggers, but they tend to be on niche subjects and are often issue-driven. Outfits like the Huffington Post provide some alternative, but that tends more to be a collection of columnist type articles from a host of different sources, some good, some not so good and rather a lot that are down right dreadful.

  31. Joe M
    Unhappy

    You can't even give it away!

    I don't even read the free-to-air garbage peddled by this evil, treacherous and amoral man. Why would I pay for any of it?

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Excuse me, but...

    [lovely Dennis Potter quote above, thanx for the reminder]

    Excuse me, but don't the folks who look at The Sun all already have Sky dishes? And quite a few who look at The Times website too?

    So like his other "services", he does a bundle.

    Free access to The Times and The Sun websites if you're a Sky Broadband customer.

    Net effect: minimal. He gets no extra revenue, his advertisers get a few less page views.

    Still, the sooner his empire destroys itself, the better.

  33. Jamie Kitson

    Does this mean...

    Does this mean that we will now have to pay for the London Paper? Or just the internet version?

  34. Onionman

    Wall Street Journal

    "The organization already charges for access to the Wall Street Journal."

    Which is why any link there is always ignored in the Onionman household.

    O

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He is competing with the FREE BBC - good luck with that

    And he is competing with the BBC - which will post news on the web for free because it gets money via our TV license.

  36. NetworkGuy

    of course the real problem is ...

    ... that other news services might be tempted to follow suit. They have also seen big drops in (print) advertising, which has been 'carrying' the internet output. They have been thinking about charging, on various models, but don't want to be first to do so.

    They will watch what happens, and possibly follow (and probably reverse out of charging again, even if NewsCorp continues, once they lose viewers for online ads).

    Simple fact is that WSJ and other specialist media (FT, Racing Times, etc) have a tight enough market that a charging model might work, but still loses some viewers.

    Advertisers will be following the audit figures to see if they want to bother with any CUG (closed user group) readership publications, and might divert to the ones still free and still being viewed.

    NewsCorp has the finances, no doubt, to play the experiment, but because Mr Murdock is known to be 'out of touch' with the internet, it goes without saying that one needs to take his comments with a sack of salt - he can indicate what he thinks, but whether there's much logic behind it is another matter.

    NewsNow shows whether a service needs a paid-for subscription, so I can spot from the headline entry whether it can be viewed or not 'at a glance' .

    I will look forward to seeing whether the NewsCorp websites last more than 6 months after starting to charge for viewing content - it's enough of a pain to register for some sites which don't charge - I'd be even less likely to touch a site which does.

  37. bluest.one
    Grenade

    What's next?

    Murdoch to launch attack on BBC's 'unfair competition' in 3... 2 ...

    Spineless, toadying politicians to accomodate complaint (in return for favourable coverage) in 3... 2...

  38. John Munyard

    Bad decision

    I read all the broadsheet UK newspapers online every day at lunchtime. I can't see how introducing charging is going to help News Intl. Aside from anything else the website layout for The Times is poor compared to the other onlines, and that's before you bring up the subject of the quality of the journalism which (I think) is noticeably inferior to Telegraph/Guardian/Indie.

    If Murdoch does introduce charges it just won't affect me. I predict many current Times readers will just migrate to the other free titles. In a global internet marketplace even News International doesn't hold a monopoly on news, and the "pay-per-view" value of a mainstream title like The Times is zero.

    If News International is going to charge, it will really have to seriously upgrade the quality of it's output, and create some unique selling points behind the paywall. Personally I don't see it happening but that's what I think they'll have to do.

  39. J Ford
    Alert

    dastardly schemes

    This may be a vehicle to attack the BBC's free service - create your own pay model, then grumble to whichever lackey global trade/competition regulatory organisation will listen that it's unfair that a 'state broadcaster' is giving this stuff away.

    I bet even with subscription the site will still be stuffed full of adverts, just like the subscription TV channels he operates.

    In an economy where there is little growth in tangible goods, you make money by persuading people to pay for things they usually get for free. Don't underestimate the digger - I remember being able to watch live football for free, without advertising, and the initial very vocal resistance from people to the idea of paying firstly monthly subscriptions and then pay-per-view.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Sky is not part of Newscorp. Oh, and he has a point.

    1. To all the people moaning about Sky - Sky is not a part of Newscorp, and these figures have absolutely nothing to do with them (in fact, Sky posted very-healthy-indeed figures last week.)

    2. The man does actually have a point. Journalism - of whatever quality - costs money. The online advertising market pays fuck all at the moment, not enough to cover the tea and donut budget let alone a journalism operation.

    Sooner or later something is going to have to give. Bloggers are all well and good, but bloggers very rarely break news, they usually regurgitate and comment on news that was broken somewhere else, by a professional news organisation.

    I don't think Murdoch is totally right, in that I don't think people will pay for his or anyone else's content. But he's right that the current model is unsustainable. The most likely outcome though is that professional journalism will die off along with the papers, and we will be left in a world where the only news is that produced by state organisations (e.g. BBC) or published in press releases.

    Personally I don't think that's a good world. But then again I wasn't brought up in a generation that knows the price it wants to pay for everything (zero) but has no idea of the value of anything.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    an

    interesting book on murdoch is The Murdoch Archipelago by bruce page. I respect him a bit... but this is quite clearly not going to work, a better option would be to increase the quality of content, rather than quantity. And create something people are prepared to pay for.

    The sun and the times are basically the same paper now. The sun reports about celebrity and occasionally politics, the times reports the same stories but debates about whether the stories or the press should be reporting such things, and sky news covers the story 12+ hours a day spattered with 'breaking news'...

    'is micheal jacksons death an important milestone? debates from both sides of the argument'

    however he does own alot of popular sites now..... lets hope he doesnt ruin the internet.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Steven Jones

    "the BBC's free internet services"

    The BBC internet services are not free, or haven't you heard of the license fee?

    Even those foreign johnnies pay for it by being forced to watch ads.

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amateur

    re " Sky is not part of Newscorp" etc

    Well, I'm very old and embittered and I won't pay a penny unless I think it's value is worth while.

    Free newspapers now dominate the local markets.

    Google has shown that internet advertising can pay!

    Journalism has always been a poor man's sport, with a "dog eat dog " plagiarising philosophy. Get used to it! Our family journalist is IMO useless, although on paper and by employer, very well qualified. If this is the standard of news of which you are so enamoured, I believe that you need a reality check.

    This plan smacks to me as a try on. When you are competing with hundreds of free sources, charging is the quickest way to lose click per page advertising revenue even if the content. is attractive. No one IMO will download and print a daily paper, and the number of willing subscribers is dropping even without a recession. All organisations have a life cycle and the over centralised newspaper industry is currently in it's death throes. The problem though is that it hasn't worked out how to move on to it's next life. It's very similar to the music/film industry, in that the market model is failing and a new model is not being created.

    I don't read the WSJ ( and If IRC the New York Times) as it requires me to register, Bloomberg, arguably a bettter source, mostly doesn't! Bloggers, perform a useful function in breaking stories which powerful people don't want disclosed. ( Think "Private Eye") Many journalists (Including the BBC) are blocked by their employers from pursuing public interest stories! Consider Channel 4 or Fox News in the US (very right wing) if you want some "perhaps" uncensored news. I believe Fox News has lost almost no advertising revenue through this recession.

    Should be interesting.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sky is part of Newscorp - there I fixed it for you

    From wikipedia - More than a third of the equity is owned by News Corporation, an American company chaired by Rupert Murdoch; News Corporation's precise shareholding fluctuates due to share options and buy backs and was 39.1% at May 2009.[1]

    The article containing the quote from timesonline.co.uk

    http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6210938.ece

    Murdoch (Newscorp) has enough voting rights to control BSkyB ltd as with other arms of his various media outlets.

    In regards to journalism at Newscorp that will be the Reuters feed, various articles from Max Clifford and what ever any other PR guru decided which celebrity needed pushing that week. Almost forgot about the Fox channel and it's ongoing bilious spew of opinion masquerading as fact.

    Murdoch isn't the only sh1t pedlar, he's just more successful and if you want that particular brand that he's selling then fine, but don't call it journalism.

  45. Roger Heathcote 1
    Alert

    State monopoly...

    >I don't think it is good for the country to have just a couple of major outlets in the form of a News International/BBC duopoly. However, that is the way we are heading.

    >The most likely outcome though is that professional journalism will die off along with the papers, and we will be left in a world where the only news is that produced by state organisations (e.g. BBC) or published in press releases.

    I might agree this were a bad thing if the entire output of the other channels wasn't utter utter dreck AND if the BBC cost as much as SKY for worse content. It is however significantly better and far cheaper... They provide 10 ad-free TV channels, 50 ad-free radio stations and almost everything they do is available to download for free for Mac, Windows AND Linux. 50p per household per day isn't a lot of money for that quantity and quality of service, even if you rarely use it.

    The papers can go screw themselves, most of them are painfully inane anyway. The days of any of newspapers paying for serious investigative journalism are pretty much over. Modern newspaper writers tend to be no better than bloggers themselves, merely commenting on whatever's on the AP wire or the Beeb without adding anything of value. The papers are growingly reliant on hiring celebrities as columnists rather than journalists because they don't want to pay real journalists to do real journalism and anyone can mouth off... hence we have papers stuffed full of banal, moronic editorial content from the likes of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Clarkeson. I can live without that.

    Roger Heathcote.

    P.S. Monty Python, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Dad's army, Only Fools and Horses, Dragons Den, The Apprentice etc etc etc...

  46. King Jack
    Unhappy

    It might work

    Although I would like to see this fail, it might work. I used to pump up my tires at the local filling station for free. Now its 20p. All the Petrol stations now charge (except ASDA). One sod started charging, the people said, 'well it's only 20p'. So now compressed air costs. This is no different. People love paying for things, Water in bottles, when tap water is 'Free'. I could go on, So, Rupert knowing the nature of the public will get idiots to subscribe because its only a few pence....

  47. Bod

    Re: Sky is not part of Newscorp

    Erm, Sky is part of BSkyB which is 39% owned and essentially controlled by News International (who own The Times, The Sun, etc), a subsidiary of NewsCorp. Sky was created by Murdoch essentially (although BSkyB was a merger with the former BSB). Murdoch stepped down as chairman but his son is currently chairman (formerly CEO).

    It's not "part" of Newscorp in terms of a wholly owned subsidiary, but it is a major holding and essentially controlled by NewsCorp unless the shares are sold.

    Finances of the major shareholder does have an impact on Sky. If NewsCorp want to suck money from Sky they can as they'd likely have the controlling vote. If NewsCorp are struggling they can flog BSkyB shares which could devalue the company and that can affect their position and investors.

  48. Angus 2
    Thumb Down

    I am with AC 15.56

    Personally I loath the Murdoch/Newscorp empire but they are a business not a charity. If advertising is not paying the bills and pleasing the shareholders then they have to find something else. Whether or not it will work is something else entirely.

    Personally I would prefer to pay for viewing/using websites with the relatively staid advertisng they have now. It can be annoying but the info/data/whatever has to be paid for somehow, and I would prefer that to micro payments or subscription.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Godzilla v's Megalon v's Mothra

    Are we ready for a battle over the internet.

    News Corp, v's Google v's the Blogosphere.

    Now I see why the Associated Press are staking a claim and suing independent news blogs etc.

    This is a premptive strike before Murdock tries to move his monopoly onto the internet.

    There are other huge players on the interweb and I can't see the likes of Google lying down and letting him try and rule their roost.

    I think this will drive news onto the smaller sites and they will be increasingly based in countries beyond the legal arms of the web giants.

    This sounds like a potential fight to the death and as we know a million davids will always beat any Godzilla.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PS

    "The most likely outcome though is that professional journalism will die off along with the papers, and we will be left in a world where the only news is that produced by state organisations"

    This already exists and the company responsible is Fox News, guess who owns Fox?

    There not exactly state owned but they are nothing more than a political stalking horse for the GOP

    A news group with one agenda, to support a particular political with propaganda and obscenely biased reporting.

    Your future prediction is already here.

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