Will We Pay for News Online?
February 10, 2011
BBC Mobile’s article “News Corp Launches Daily Newspaper for iPad” prompts a few questions.
The article examines the Rupert Murdoch empire’s launch of the Daily, via Apple’s iTunes store. A dedicated staff of journalist has been hired, a choice which separates this from most device-specific news sources. Alongside traditional news articles will be interactive graphics, videos, Twitter feeds, and personalized content.
The Daily will cost 99 cents a week. That doesn’t sound like much, but will consumers be willing to pay anything to access news online?
“Mr Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to get consumers paying for news on the Web. The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sunday Times, all owned by Murdoch, have introduced pay walls for their websites. However, the Times has since seen an 87% drop in online readership.
We now have many sources for free, quality news coverage online, so it is no wonder readers are reluctant to pay. However, I predict that that flow will be stemmed in the coming years as companies become less willing to give their work away for free. Nevertheless, it is difficult to generate significant revenues online. Experimentation ahead.
Cynthia Murrell February 10, 2011
Comments
3 Responses to “Will We Pay for News Online?”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stephen E Arnold, Rafael Alcocer. Rafael Alcocer said: RT @BeyondSearch: New blog post: Will We Pay for News Online? http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2011/02/10/will-we-pay-for-news-online/ […]
Interesting note, however, very little news content is actually ‘given away for free’. You may notice those distracting little squares all over the pages of your preferred news source – they’re called ads – companies pay to put them there.
I rather suspect that Mr Murdoch is trying to have his cake and eat it here. I haven’t noticed any lack of ads on his ‘news’ sites on my rare visits. I’m forced to wonder what it is exactly that he wants me to buy and whether that should be a bit more obviouse before I part with my cash.
Anything of note will eventually cost money I am sure. But for the time being, most things are posted in mulitple places, so if you don’t want to pay for it, you can find it somewhere else.