More papers to follow Murdoch

rupert murdoch

LONDON: Days after Rupert Murdoch announced plans for his newspapers to start charging for their web news content, signalling an end to the era of free online access, other British newspapers were reported to be considering following the “Murdoch model” to make up for losses caused by declining readership and advertising.

The Financial Times, which already charges for some of its exclusive online services, and the left-wing Independent were both said to be in advanced stages of introducing versions of the pay-as-you-go scheme.

FT’s chief executive, John Ridding, said there was “significant potential for pricing per piece and per time period” arguing that the whole point of Internet was “flexible consumption” and “reader choice”.

The newspaper was reported to be discussing a “pay-per-article” scheme on the lines of the Apple iTunes model which allows people to download a single song at a nominal price. Its executives were looking at the least “hassle-free” payment model because, according to them, experience showed that people objected to “hassle” of paying rather than paying.

“You absolutely can charge, but there can’t be a poor payment experience. It must be slick like Amazon’s one-click service or Apple iTunes,” Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com told The Guardian.

The Independent, which is struggling to survive in the face of huge debts, was also reported to be considering charging options as experts warned that the current business model of running newspapers was no longer viable. They said the fact that Mr. Murdoch had been forced to think of new ways of sustaining his newspapers was a pointer to the shape of things to come.

“Rupert Murdoch generally doesn’t get things wrong. He was the one who led most of the papers belatedly on to the Internet and that has worked in terms of the number of eyeballs now looking at these sites,” Bob Satchwell, chairman of the Society of Editors told The Independent.

Mr. Murdoch’s decision followed a big slump in the earnings of his company, News Corp, which owns The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World. It has lost £2 billion because of recession and collapse in advertising revenues this year, which Mr. Murdoch described as the “most difficult in recent history.” He said his company could produce “significant revenues from the sale of digital delivery of newspaper content.”

He is expected to launch the new scheme, starting with The Sunday Times later this year.