OK, the party is over. No more free newspapers online. Come on, cough up some loose change.
That's what media titan Rupert Murdoch has in mind for you judging from his recent pronouncements that the days of free online news "are going to stop."(source, Mumbrella)
Oh well, that was fun while it lasted.
Or maybe he's got it wrong. While Murdoch has a huge sway over broadcast and print media in the US, Australia and US, the Web is a different matter altogether.
That's because:
1 - Sure, I can see people buying in specialised content from the likes of the Wall Street Journal or (Pearson owned) Financial Times, that they need to do their jobs. But online news? Forget it.
2 - I won't rehash the stats about the ageing print readership, but it is a fact that there is a whole generation that is not used to paying for news. What makes Rupe think they are about to start?
3 - For every mainstream newspaper that starts charging for its content, my bet is that ten won't. The alternatives to get your news are almost infinite online.
Brand loyalty as a whole is on its way down post recession, it's no great hassle to switch to someone else. And you can turn a negative into a positive as one of the joys of looking at news and comment online is that you discover a range of people you'd never have come across normally.
Image - Ashe-Villain
Related articles by Zemanta- Murdoch: Newspapers Must Charge For Online; Debt Is The Problem, Not Print (paidcontent.org)
- FT.com: WSJ to introduce micropayments (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
- New model journalism will exploit rather than resent the freedoms of the net... (sluggerotoole.com)
- The news is dead; long live the news (nevillehobson.com)
- Murdoch says to get ready to pay up (inquisitr.com)
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