The Murdoch Plan: A Consortium
And so, the Murdoch plan for content charging begins to become clear:
> As newspapers across the country struggle with declining readership and > advertising revenue, News Corp. executives have been meeting in recent > weeks with publishers about forming a consortium that would charge for > news distributed online and on portable devices — and potentially stem > the rising tide of red ink.So, it’s a consortium model. And that’s interesting, because it runs the risk of running afoul of cartel legislation, and because it immediatly creates a significant dividing line between the new low cost, free to air business who live and die by links and engagement and the old high cost, paid content businesses, who huddle together behind a paywall designed to protect their traditional business model.
If it succeeds, it will change many of the assumptions about the way that the internet operates. If it fails, it may well be the killing blow for many old media institutions.
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Some Good Reading About The Future of News Paid Members Public
Good stuff I’ve read recently, haven’t linked to yet, but don’t have much to add to right now: * The Nichepaper Manifesto [http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/07/the_nichepaper_manifesto.html] – an articulate and well argued guide to how niche publishing might looks going forwards. * Media