Murdoch to charge for newspaper web access within year

Published on Thursday 6 August 2009 21:28

NEWSPAPER owner Rupert Murdoch plans to charge online customers within a year to view content across all News Corporation websites.

The chairman and chief executive said he was thinking of a time frame "in terms of this fiscal year" to make the changes.

In the UK, News Corporation owns the Sun, the Times, the Sunday Times and the News of the World.

Murdoch said: "We intend to charge for all our news websites.

Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting."

He said the organisation would avoid a migration of readers to free sites by "making our content better and differentiated from other people.

"I believe that if we are successful, we will be followed by other media."

Murdoch spoke of the popularity of celebrity stories.

He said: "We will be asserting our copyright at every point."

News Corporation reported a $3.4 billion (2 billion) net loss for the year to the end of June.

Making his comments yesterday during a conference call, the media mogul said the past year has been "the most difficult in recent history".

He highlighted the Daily Telegraph MPs' expenses stories as news for which consumers would be willing to pay.

In May, Murdoch signalled his intention to begin charging readers to use websites within 12 months.

The situation at the website of the Wall Street Journal – owned by News Corporation and which runs a subscription service – indicated people would be prepared to pay to read newspapers online, he said.