As news broke on Friday of News International’s latest monkey-making scheme, there are many questions that have been raised by Rupert Murdoch’s decisions, which is risky to say the least. From June 2010, The Times and The Sunday Times Websites will go subscription-based. Online viewers will have to pay £1 a day or £2 a week to access the news stories from their sites.
Both newspapers feel that the decision they’ve made was inevitable, largely thanks to the consistent fallings in newspaper reading circulation and the rapidly growing competition from the Internet. What it does give is a possible outlook to how online journalism may operate in the future. Competitors such as the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail have already voiced their concerns over this latest development, both thinking that there is a major danger that the Times may price itself out of the online market.
To date only specialised papers like the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal charge consumers to view their online content. Therefore, this is a risky strategy, as The Times is such a popular source for hard-hitting news stories. James Harding, the current editor of The Times has admitted that this move might not work out, but is confident that the behaviour of people on the Internet will change, so consequently, the switch will be made for the better. It will leave people with food for thought, whether they want to pay the pound to access The Times’ website, or look at similar articles for free on competitor’s websites, such as The Guardian, The Independent or the Daily Mail.
Murdoch has taken some major gambles in the past, but by being a successful media mogul, most have paid off, such as the launch of BSkyB in February 1989. He insists that for quality journalism, free doesn’t work anymore, especially with the falling newspaper sales. There is an also strong possibility that Murdoch’s other newspapers underneath his News Corp empire, The Sun and The News of the World may end up going to a subscription based website. The next few months for the entire journalism field will watch with waited breath to see whether this gamble will pay off, with either winning results or an experiment that won’t go up successful avenues.
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