THE RUPERT Murdoch-controlled News International group will charge for online access to the London Times and the Sunday Times from June in what is “but the start” of major changes in online publishing, and other titles in the group will follow, the company’s chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, said.
Subscribers will be asked to pay £1 a day or £2 per week to read the two newspapers.
“At a defining moment for journalism, this is a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition. We are proud of our journalism and unashamed to say that we believe it has value. This is just the start,” Ms Brooks declared yesterday.
In the past Mr Murdoch has favoured free-to-view media websites, and he even talked about dismantling the Wall Street Journal’s online paywall when he bought out that newspaper.
However the global fall in newspaper advertising, down 14 per cent last year and expected to contract by a further 2.9 per cent this year, has led to a change of mind.
Newspaper sales figures in Britain have been dropping by between 3 and 5 per cent for the last two decades, spurred by lifestyle changes.
The situation has worsened dramatically with the growth of the internet and the near-total availability of free news on countless websites in the last number of years.
The decision by News International to begin to close down free online access to all of its publications – except for those readers who take the newspapers by subscription – will be closely watched by other publishers throughout the world, which are struggling with falling circulation and advertising revenues from print editions.
Most have so far not managed to replace the losses with advertising on their websites.
Mr Murdoch has for long complained that the world’s biggest internet search engine, Google, which aggregates news stories from around the world on its Google News site, is “stealing” newspapers’ work and their revenues.
The company has blocked other online news aggregators, such as NewsNow, and has now decided to extend the ban to the long-established Nexis service – though the London Times and Sunday Times will still be searchable on the Murdoch-owned Factiva service.
Last November it was reported that Microsoft and News International’s parent company, News Corporation, had discussed making the latter’s content exclusively available to Microsoft’s search engine Bing.
The New York Times, one of the biggest media players, has changed its mind frequently about the internet – originally being free, then operating a paywall and now free-to-view.
It has said it will charge a flat-rate fee, still to be decided, from early next year, acknowledging that online advertising revenues are unlikely to be large enough to protect its future.
