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Would you pay for online news?

Thu May 07 03:00PM

It appears that Times are a-changing at News Corporation. According to reports Rupert Murdoch is to start charging readers for accessing the company's newspaper websites.

Buoyed by the success of online subscriptions at the Wall Street Journal the billionaire claims that the news media is going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge for online news.

In the UK this means that access to websites such as The Sun, The Times and the News of the World will become restricted to those who will pay for it.

These sites are currently being monetised with adverts and it is unclear if that business model will be removed if a subscription charge is introduced, but it would certainly be hard to justify.

Speaking on a conference call with reporters Murdoch said that he was "absolutely looking at introducing fees within the next 12 months," and that "the current days of the internet will soon be over."

It will certainly be very difficult for newspapers to persuade readers to pay for news they can easily get from the BBC, Yahoo! or MSN for free.

"We're not going for the Facebook model of getting hundreds and hundreds of million of people who don't bring any advertising with them at all," he said.

A lack of earnings from newspapers were one of the major reasons News Corp's quarterly operating profits fell by 47%, although a large gain on sale of assets boosted pre-tax profits to $1.7 billion, similar to last year's figure.

So the question lies with you, would you pay to read newspapers online or would you continue with a free alternative?

Comments21 - 30 of 455

Absolute NO. Most of the news is either too hyped up, we should'nt know about it (at least not in that much detail) or its compleate rubbish with no effect on life itself!
If its important I'm sure we will read it for free anyway.

From orange.jelly on Thu May 07 03:33PM
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Not for me. "news" is free elsewhere; apart from which as a regular Times reader, Im getting a bit brassed off with its attempts to be `cool` - its turning into a second rate tabloid. There is seldom anything at all that hasnt been hyped in some way, but then thats all the media these days, got to exaggerate everything

From b.orr on Thu May 07 03:34PM
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No I would not...can't believe half the stories you read in them, I have not bought a paper in years and I don't intend to do so now.....and even some pictures are not all they seem to be.

From gwenneth1 on Thu May 07 03:34PM
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Don't read it now so certainly wouldn't pay for it

From a.towle on Thu May 07 03:38PM
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No, I would not pay, and I suspect the Wall Street Journal buyers would not pay either except that it is a convenient place to get market information. That they are so keen to read that paper suggests that they may be a little more able to pay than most of us!

From nancyhoman on Thu May 07 03:39PM
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no i wont even buy a newspaper so would not pay on here

From goldy_linda on Thu May 07 03:42PM
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Let's hope we're looking at the end of the tabloid newspaper!

From monkehgeoff on Thu May 07 03:49PM
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no way

From ekrem007 on Thu May 07 03:56PM
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Why should we pay for the reporting of news while the actual creators of the news get nothing?
Let's be totally honest here, the type of news Mr Murdock supports isn't real news anyway. His empire has been built by trading on other peoples misery.
I haven't bought a newspaper in twenty years. So I'm not going to start paying for online news

From bondmasteruk on Thu May 07 04:01PM
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definitely not. the newsworthy news is reported on tv, which we already pay for. most of the rest of a newsPAPER consists of gossip & adverts

From sbailey421 on Thu May 07 04:04PM
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