Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8385342.stm

This will be interesting to keep an eye on..;)

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

I wonder how much Murdoch paid them for this little experiment?

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

It had to happen, sooner or later - unless you have google-size advertising base to gather revenue, the cost of gathering/publishing the news has to come from somewhere.

Not happy about it, but understand it.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

The thing is, it will happen. I daresay other publishers are going to do it as well.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

It is an issue for the business if they can't compete. It is not the concern of the customer.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

Of course its the concern of the customer, if the business ceases to exist, the customer loses.

Just up the road from me, not that I ever read it anyway. :)

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

I am not responsible for any of my suppliers if they go bust. There are many more suppliers in the market, as there in the media world. If I want news, I just use any of the hundreds of search engines available to me to find that news. If this media group wants to take the Murdoch dollar, they are welcome to it.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

Besides which no one owns the news..all it takes is for a blogger ,twitterer on the spot to 'break' the news to the whole world.;)

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

But most print papers have some sort of filtering/screening/validation process (most) - can we honestly say that for most bloggers?

They may break the news, but how is the in-depth detail and back-story gathered? Usually by experienced reporters.

Re bloggers - whilst some are excellent, some are Perez Hilton.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

The day we're left to rely on citizen journalists to find out what's happening in the world, we wil be right up the creek. For all their faults, only professional news organisations have the resources to get all the places they need to go, and to get access not only to sources of information but also sources of validation.

Bloggers etc have their place in the mix but they are not a substitute.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

The consumer *is* ultimately affected because their choice is reduced. You say there are enough suppliers in the market. That may be true, at the moment. How about ten years time when all bar two or three have gone bankrupt? This is what will happen with newspapers if they don't get more revenue. The free news model being used at the moment is not (sadly) sustainable for the long term. Clearly, Advertising rates are not currently high enough to sustain them.

Blogs and amateur news sites are not the answer. Amateurs do not have access to the resources that professional journalists have access to. As Chris says, they have their place, but they should not replace the pros. It's also worth noting that people make decisions on who they vote for based upon what they see and read in the media.. Give control of the media to one or two companies (as is already happening), and you give those companies the power to pervert the course of any election. That has an impact on *all* of us.

In short, it is extremely naive to assume that you will not be affected if the professional news organisations don't make more money.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

Then the nature of the relationship between the media and their advertisers need to change. The media companies need to charge more for their advertising then. I cannot see that is the fault of the consumer. The media companies need to resume the same level of revenue they had before, so why not charge them the same rates as they would have if they had printed the advert in the newspaper?

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

Because that is not how internet advertising revenue works - it tends to be on the pay per click method of many micropayments.

Also, how can the media companies charge more in the middle of a recession, when most companies are cutting their advertising budgets?

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

And now Google have given them a tool to make this profitable

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8389896.stm

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

So begins the demise of the "Freetard" mentality.

Re: Johnston Press websites start charging for news
 

Rather pointless concession. Murdoch's complaint was that Google was not paying for the indexing of his site. Google shouldn't be allowing people to circumvent pay walls (well, without the permission of their owners) anyway but Murdoch expected that. He just also wanted revenue for his 'content' to appear on the search engine. :dozey:

The news media found a nice way around this away didn't they? Open up the first paragraph and headline for public viewing and hide the rest behind a paywall.

It seems like Murdoch wants search engines to be like a TV subscription model. If you use Bing you get access to The Times and The Sun. Bing Plus (at a cost of £20 a month) would get you access to Sky Sports and so on.