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?