Philip Gomes

Yesterday saw another installment in Rupert Murdoch's attempt to stem the tide of change.....or bend it to his will.

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

Even though this may be all they have left in the face of a balance sheet rapidly going south all over the globe, you have to give the man some credit for trying. According to The Guardian the Sunday Times will be first to launch this experiment in paying for news content.

But for this plan to work he's going to have to do a lot to convince the punters - if the comments at the News.com.au version of the story are to be believed.

Predictably, readers say they will just go elsewhere, trashing News' version of the news as they head out the door.

Clearly News Ltd, journalism and journalists are not held in high esteem.

Who'd pay for this crap? Posted by: jack 6:09pm today Comment 88 of 139

After reading through the comments, the snarkier part of me wonders if a comment free version of News' news is something I'd pay for.

Interestingly though, if you read deeper into the comments you'll find a trade-off - people will pay - for an ad free experience.

Hopefully this will mean if we pay a fee to see the online edition then we won't have to have all these irritating adverts running in every available space on the page. Posted by: Andrew Jones 5:55pm today Comment 73 of 139

I think it's a credible trade-off, but can Rupert and other large scale publishers balance that in the face of declining ad revenue?

Imagine paying and having to deal with pop-ups, banners and navigation designed to enhance click through rates - would you consider that an enjoyable reading experience?

In addition to a quality assurance, readers will want a seamless, clean and uncluttered experience, without the usual advertising driven bag of tricks littering their desktops.

Naturally the dirty digger will pitch his paying customers to advertisers as a 'better' class of reader than the 'free' punters now consuming his web offerings and happily charge them more for that reach.

I'm looking forward to what many think a grand experiment in imperial overreach. Something tells me that, once again, the barbarians at the gate are likely to bring down another empire.

So, would you pay? Or better yet, what exactly would you pay for?

Elsewhere: Jeff Jarvis at the Guardian on how charging for content will open the door for other competitors. Derek Barry echoes Jarvis and wishes News Corp well. And Duncan Riley asks a simple but interesting question of News Ltd's John Hartigan.

Alan Kohler chimes in with Rupert and the death of hubris.

Advertisers and their agencies now rule the roost. They refuse to pay more than a tenth or so per unit of what they pay in print, and they demand much better service, such as only paying for actual new customers, not simply for “branding” that can’t be measured. And why shouldn’t they act this way? The publishers have been screwing them for a hundred years, charging outrageous prices to access their treasured audiences. Technology has now turned the tables. Rupert Murdoch’s answer to this is to screw his readers instead. Nice one Rupe.

Fun times.

Also crossposted at Larvatus Prodeo where there is a good conversation going on.

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News Digital's Richard Freudenstein may be right, we will pay.

Two good examples are music and movies - both of which I sometimes pay for, and willingly - if it's what I want to listen to or watch and if I deem the price to be right.

And as someone who's now in the business of media creation I want to know that the fruits of my labour will have a value above zero.

He's also right about platforms, we will consume media in whatever package we choose. I do already.

So there is nothing really surprising here - less surprising is a media giant with monopolistic tendencies searching for relevance in a world where everyone is a publisher, with fragmentation and loose distribution the norm.

Even less surprising is that advertising is still the real commodity, not news.

But if he still wants to deliver the same old way of doing business dressed up in shiny new technological packages then it ain't gonna fly.

If you want respect and legitimacy in a new media environment then a different way of doing business is required, and right now News fails on that score.

Lastly, it's pretty clear that what we're seeing is a rearguard action by all of the big media players to stitch up a pay-to-play model as fast as possible because for them it's a race against time.

They are trying to cut off to new media content they regard as theirs.

But what they still haven't yet learned is that old saw about the web seeing monolopistic stuff like this as a blockage to be worked around.

They are dying and new media networks are growing quickly and collectively morphing into efficient suppliers of news. Why? Because they have learned to share.

That's something News and others in their position still haven't learned.

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