Murdoch says News Corp to charge for newspaper sites

BILLIONAIRE MEDIA mogul Rupert Murdoch has indicated that he will begin charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within the next 12 months.

"That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the [ Wall Street] Journal's experience," Mr Murdoch said in a conference call with analysts and media this week following the publication of third-quarter results for News Corp.

The current business model, in which most newspaper groups allow access to their content online for free and seek revenue from advertising, was "malfunctioning", he said.

Mr Murdoch was asked if he was considering charging for material produced by his British newspapers, including the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sunand the News of the World, all of which have a strong presence in Ireland.

"We're absolutely looking at that," Mr Murdoch said.

"The current days of the internet will soon be over."

This marks something of a turnaround in Mr Murdoch's thinking on how newspapers should approach the internet.

Two years ago he predicted that advertising could sustain free news websites.

Commenting on Mr Murdoch's remarks about charging for online content, New York-based media analyst David Joyce told The Irish Times: "All of the newspapers in the US are trying to figure out how to get consumers to pay for something they've been getting for free.

"You need someone to push everyone forward. Murdoch is really the only one who's really been successful with it [ through his acquisition of the Wall Street Journal]."

He added: "Someone has got to get this started or newspapers will go away."

Mr Joyce, of institutional trading firm Miller Tabak & Co, highlighted the example of Newsday, a Long Island-based newspaper, which has recently started charging for its online content.

News Corp this week reported a steep decline in operating income for the third fiscal quarter. It amounted to $755 million (€556 million) compared with $1.4 billion in the same period last year.

Advertising revenue for its British and Australian newspapers declined by 21 per cent and 16 per cent respectively in the quarter.

On a brighter note, Mr Murdoch said it was "increasingly clear the worst is over" in terms of the global economic downturn.

"There are encouraging signs in some of our businesses that the days of precipitous declines are done, and things are beginning to look healthier," he said.