Rupert Murdoch takes on the internet

[Hazir]

source

Rupert Murdoch has made no secret of his distaste for the way how the internet has gotten people used to getting a lot of the stuff they consume, software, information, for free. And he didn't waste any opportunity telling us that he was going to change this. Now, coming June the websites of the Times and Sunday Times (of London) won't be free any longer.

I really, seriously, can't imagine why somebody would want to pay for whatever it is the Times has to offer online. There are so many sources for the news that are free, and that have no intention to charge either (if anything I have seen media giving up trying to charge) that the only outcome I can see of this is that the Times will loose a huge chunk of the people that drop in on its page and that in the end Murdoch will have to conclude that with the readership the site has it doesn't make sense to keep it running. Also, he'll have to realise that where people are quite willing to put up with some advertising for a free service, they quickly will get tired of that on websites that actually cost them money.

I see this going only one way; the Times will simply drop off the radar in internet terms, and it will loose a lot of its relevance in the media landscape because of that.

[earthJoker]

Can't agree more. Also there is a big shift to free newspapers nowadays so this really goes against the trend.

[Aimless]

Maybe they intend to offer something spectacular alongside the pure, unformatted text of the news. In that case perhaps they can make money off of this, who knows.

[earthJoker]

Like what? Porn?

[Aimless]

I have no idea, but it isn't exactly news that there are people who pay for things on the internet that you'da thought no-one would pay for.

[Hazir]

Maybe they intend to offer something spectacular alongside the pure, unformatted text of the news. In that case perhaps they can make money off of this, who knows.

Yes, I would really not know what that could be. High quality analysis? Then they'd get into a niche market that pretty much also finishes off the Times as a traditional newspaper.

[Timbuk2]

Ever since Rupert Murdoch directly intervened to withdraw an article due to be published in The Times regarding dubious practices carried out between Murdoch's News Corp and the Chinese Government in setting up Murdoch's Asian Star TV satellite channels, I lost any respect I may have had for the newspaper.

I wouldn't buy it in print and certainly wouldn't pay for it online.

Murdoch may control vast swathes of the world's media, but he cannot single-handedly bring about a wholesale change to the way the masses receive their online news. And thank heavens for that.

[Dreadnaught]

Can't agree more. Also there is a big shift to free newspapers nowadays so this really goes against the trend.

The problem is the shift to free newspapers has coincided with newspapers becoming unprofitable and closing. He's right that people may have gotten too used to content for too little money, but he's likely totally wrong that people are willing to pay for most of the content newspapers produce.

Still, RE Hazir's title-- I don't think it's fair to say Rupert is taking on the Internet as much as the Internet has been taking on the models for paying for content. This is an example of newspapers trying to evolve. We'll see if it works even a bit.

[earthJoker]

The problem is the shift to free newspapers has coincided with newspapers becoming unprofitable and closing.

I am not sure if the free newspapers are the major reason, I think the new medias like internete and TV are a more important reason.

[Hazir]

I am not sure if the free newspapers are the major reason, I think the new medias like internete and TV are a more important reason.

I think so too. People get 'raw' news from other media, then the internet is the place where they find out about the background and talk about it.I wouldn't spend money on daily's I think, on a weekly like the Economist I am far more willing to spend money. I think what this boils down to is that Rupert can't come to terms with the changed environment and tries to force it into old business models. A struggle the music business has lost, the movie busness is losing it, and there is no chance in hell Rupert is going to win his battle.

[Ominous Gamer]

The only paper I read is Tampa's TBT. Its free, its only the hightlights of the St. Pete Times, and its written with an attitude of not giving a fuck.
And its growing, their print, distribution and readership has doubled in only a few years.

Thanks to sites like Digg and Reddit, pay news will never work. Information online always spreads into the forms easiest to read/view/acquire. I'm so out of the loop for the physical price of a paper I laughed that the ipad version of The Wall Streeet Journal is going to cost $216 a year, and I laughed some more when I discovered that was cheaper than the physical print at $348!

Newsday already tried the subscription idea, after a $4 million dollar website redesign, and 3 months of waiting, they only got 35 subscribers.
But Murdoch is an idiot, guess he has to find that out the hard way.

[Dreadnaught]

I am not sure if the free newspapers are the major reason, I think the new medias like internete and TV are a more important reason.

True, the model has been under fire for a while. But the Internet has made "print media" (IE written words, text and pictures) accessible in a very different way. Newspapers finally lost that monopoly, and the quasi-monopolistic newspaper advertising model went out the window as well.

[agamemnus]

Won't be missing them. The UK Times can't even differentiate between "pressured" and "pressurized": "The businessman was pressurized"...

[ar81]

source
I really, seriously, can't imagine why somebody would want to pay for whatever it is the Times has to offer online. There are so many sources for the news that are free, and that have no intention to charge either (if anything I have seen media giving up trying to charge) that the only outcome I can see of this is that the Times will loose a huge chunk of the people that drop in on its page and that in the end Murdoch will have to conclude that with the readership the site has it doesn't make sense to keep it running. Also, he'll have to realise that where people are quite willing to put up with some advertising for a free service, they quickly will get tired of that on websites that actually cost them money.

I see this going only one way; the Times will simply drop off the radar in internet terms, and it will loose a lot of its relevance in the media landscape because of that.

You are forgetting Rupert Murdoch IS the internet, bwahahahahaha!!!

[RandBlade]

I'll stop reading The Times, but then again I ad-block the adverts on The Times anyway so on a purely business level I'm nothing but a drain on them, a leech essentially.

The Financial Times (no relation to The Times) has trialled over time many business models online and settled into a very successful model where they do charge for their content. They are also the most profitable of all the daily newspapers largely as a result. Virtually all the mainstream papers are losing money as advertising alone is not paying for the content they offer - and free blogs rival the traditional press online now. I actually spend very little time on newspapers like The Times (which I used to read daily) mainly because I get my news from specialist blogs instead and go to whichever papers have the best stories not just one.

The FT's model is to provide high quality, specialist output - and people are prepared to pay for that. Of course the FT is a specialist paper, while The Economist is a specialist weekly magazine that again charges for content. The decision to go to a subscription model does buck the trend for non-specialist papers, but it may prove successful. The current free models are not making money, so its not a stupid decision by News International and could be worth taking the risk.

There are a large number of people who will pay for The Times, even if just for professional reasons. Even if its just as low as 4% of their current users, that would get them over £8mn per annum. Not insignificant!

[Dreadnaught]

Why ad blocking software? Are the ads really that offensive to you?

[RandBlade]

Yes.

Especially ironically on The Times website, which last time I didn't use ad-block software used a plethora of annoying Flash/Pop-under and other pesky ads that go over the text. I record my TV shows and fast-forward through the ads on that, frequently change stations when ads come on the radio when I'm driving and put junk mail straight into the recycling bin unread.

[Steely Glint]

Arse Technica explains why ad-block destroys websites

[Ominous Gamer]

Adblock is for assholes.

[Dreadnaught]

Yes.

Especially ironically on The Times website, which last time I didn't use ad-block software used a plethora of annoying Flash/Pop-under and other pesky ads that go over the text. I record my TV shows and fast-forward through the ads on that, frequently change stations when ads come on the radio when I'm driving and put junk mail straight into the recycling bin unread.

It doesn't sound like you care about pop-unders, which are actually quite rare these days except on shady porn sites. It sounds like you have a visceral aversion to all types of advertising.

[RandBlade]

LOL, I'm surprised at OG saying that I must admit.

[Loki]

The FT's model is to provide high quality, specialist output - and people are prepared to pay for that. Of course the FT is a specialist paper, while The Economist is a specialist weekly magazine that again charges for content. The decision to go to a subscription model does buck the trend for non-specialist papers, but it may prove successful. The current free models are not making money, so its not a stupid decision by News International and could be worth taking the risk.

There are a large number of people who will pay for The Times, even if just for professional reasons. Even if its just as low as 4% of their current users, that would get them over £8mn per annum. Not insignificant!

The Economist actually stopped charging well over a year ago. Everything on the site is free.

It doesn't sound like you care about pop-unders, which are actually quite rare these days except on shady porn sites. It sounds like you have a visceral aversion to all types of advertising.

Do you make it a point to watch the commercials when you're watching TV?

[Ominous Gamer]

LOL, I'm surprised at OG saying that I must admit.

How so? I was one of the first people to point out that Atari's forum redesign removed their advertising stream. I fully understand that for the most part the internet is free. If I'm going to use a site, I'm going to use the whole thing. Not be a prick and pick the parts I do and do not want. I also don't turn the TV off during commercials.

[RandBlade]

It doesn't sound like you care about pop-unders, which are actually quite rare these days except on shady porn sites. It sounds like you have a visceral aversion to all types of advertising.

Perhaps. But it depends.

Unobtrusive ads I don't mind. Google's text-based ads on my Gmail account aren't blocked and they don't bother me. Flashing fake Windows error messages saying you've won a prize and need to click this link, expanding ads that take over the screen when you accidentally roll your mouse over them (increasingly common), pop-unders, and most annoying of all ads that make noise are all really annoying. The problem is most ads are designed to get your attention - and that is what makes them annoying.

TV ads that have the volume shoot up to louder than the show you're watching the second the ads start are annoying/if the program is recorded then the ads are a waste of time.

Radio ads I won't even realise often an ad is playing as its background noise as much as the music, but then you get the guy screaming/repetitvely saying the same thing (one for a local car dealership called Chapel House motors that consists of the words Chapel House being said repeatedly as fast as possible for 20 seconds while a voiceover says whatever the issue of the day they're advertising is just winds me up while I'm trying to concentrate on driving.

Junk mail is a waste of paper and goes directly to the recycling along with any bills. 95% of what comes through my letter box goes directly to the recycling bin unopened and unviewed. Pretty much the only junk mail that ever works on me is a takeaway/delivery menu, simply because its handy to have a local Chinese menu to try. But then again get about half a dozen pizza/Chinese/Indian menu's a week and there's only one local one of each type that I'd order (one in each category I know I like and has good hygiene) from so all the others get recycled.

---------------

Basically ads that fade into the background (which don't bother me at all), ads that try and distract you from what you're doing any pay your attention to the ad are what I hate. Some TV ones which don't scream out at you can even be entertaining - most alcohol/car and oddly enough Microsoft ads are good. But the problem is the annoying ones work, so they're common. So I block them if I can. Potentially could be a good circle rather than a negative one - if enough people took action against annoying ads, then they wouldn't work, so people wouldn't pay for them, so people would no longer have reason to block ads.

Are you saying that when you're watching live TV where the ads can't be fast-forwarded that you never wait to go to the toilet/put the kettle on, grab a drink/grab a snack for when the ads are on? You'll just as equally do all that during the show?

[Ominous Gamer]

if enough people took action against annoying ads, then they wouldn't work, so people wouldn't pay for them, so people would no longer have reason to block ads.

People do take action againist these ads, they stop visting that site. Programs like adblock don't send any message except "I'm an asshole, I block ads, yours and theirs". You don't get shit for data about "taking action" by viewing the site but not the ads.

[RandBlade]

Really? Are pop-ups more or less common since pop-up blockers became common?

What about pop-unders?

If the ads are discrete enough people don't bother to block them - even with AdBlock I still get Google ads on Gmail. As I said, I don't care about that because its discrete text - had it been a flashy gif I'd have blocked it. Yes I'd agree that programs like adblock are indiscriminate, but the implementation of programs like them has made advertisers think about how annoying their ads are and rein back. I do a large portion of my browsing on my iPhone and have no adblock on Safari on that. There are ways to do it, but the sites I go to on that aren't too annoying with the ads (no flash helps ) so I put up with them on that.

[Loki]

Rather ironic to see someone who has no problems with torrents or numerous other types of thefts of intellectual property complaining about doing something that's completely legal.

[Ominous Gamer]

Really? Are pop-ups more or less common since pop-up blockers became common?

What about pop-unders?

Pop-ups and pop-unders failed because users became conditioned to their existence, and the software abuse they allowed. Microsoft didn't include a blocker because of ads There has actually been uptick in popups as broadband speeds increase, since it allows the ad to be delivered before the window can be closed.

Rather ironic to see someone who has no problems with torrents or numerous other types of thefts of intellectual property complaining about doing something that's completely legal.

Thats because you're an idiot.

[RandBlade]

Rather ironic to see someone who has no problems with torrents or numerous other types of thefts of intellectual property complaining about doing something that's completely legal.

That was why I mentioned OG. AdBlock is legal unlike torrents.

Pop-ups and pop-unders failed because users became conditioned to their existence, and the software abuse they allowed. Microsoft didn't include a blocker because of ads

No, pop-up blocking was one of the main reasons spouted to switch from IE to Mozilla years ago. Pop-ups were still common on IE until they were blocked, they didn't fail because people chose no longer to implement them. They failed because enough people installed software to block them. MS added it to IE because it was playing catch-up adding a very popular function that all other web-browsers offered which was a motivation for people to switch to the other browsers.

Why was it popular? Because of a dislike of ads.

Without early pop-up blocking facilities (and adblock etc) by Mozilla years ago and then Firefox its quite probable that Firefox wouldn't have the market share it now does.

[Ominous Gamer]

AdBlock is legal unlike torrents.

invalid umbrella statement, please try again.