Daily Dose of Common Sense

Rupert Murdoch, the powerhouse behind News Corporation, believes that you will pay for online news content. He is confident that sites such as FoxNews.com and NYPost.com can be profitable using a pay-per-article model. The goal is to be so successful that the other news sites follow suit.

It’s true the Internet has taken a huge bite out of the newspaper business. Papers all across the world are struggling as people turn to more immediate and cheaper sources of news. Good reporters and writers aren’t cheap, and maintaining a Web presence is expensive. We’re not begrudging anyone from operating on a pay-per-article basis, as does the online version of the Wall Street Journal (wsj.com). But, with so many sources of free news available, I am not sure users will feel the need to fork over hard-earned cash.

Would you pay to read Page Six online in order to find out who Britney Spears was spotted with last night? Likely not, when you could read it so many other places for free. Murdoch’s goal is to create content so unique and desirable that the cost will make sense to the user. I’m not sure News Corp. is the trailblazer that can pull it off, but good luck with that.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.