…or could Murdoch make a success of charging?

Among all the critics out there I see very few people supporting Rupert Murdoch’s push towards paid-for content and fewer still saying they think it will work (including the large majority of people surveyed by this very blog).

But I’ve found one, swimming bravely against the tide.

So hats off for challenging the status quo Malcolm Coles writing over on econsultancy. Coles states:

“Commentators have queued up to tell Rupert Murdoch that his plan to charge for online content is wrong. But I think it's obvious that he can charge.

“Murdoch's got the will to charge, access to value-add content, and has a lot of experience selling subscription products in the UK. The question is not whether he can charge - it's whether his competitors can match his content and experience.”

To paraphrase, what Coles appears to be saying is: of course he can charge, he’s Rupert Murdoch, he can do whatever he likes. And I agree with Coles in as much as of course Murdoch can charge. But Coles also seems to think it will be a success. On that point I don’t agree.

He is Rupert Murdoch - true - and that arguably makes him the most powerful man in the world but I believe single-handedly redefining the economics of the web are beyond even him.

Coles adds:

“But what if Murdoch's paid-for sites were breaking exclusive stories at 8am - especially ones that were picture- or video-based? Sure, competitors will have versions of that story up soon, but they won't be as good - and nor will they have had the several hours' notice that they get when they pick up a first edition at 11pm the night before."

But if News Corp’s stable of publications, most notably The Sun, was unable to produce compelling, exclusive content when they first got wind of the newspaper industry’s decline some years back why would their reaction now be any different?

Fundamentally, this comes down to Murdoch and Co's struggle to ‘get’ the web, possibly due to some bad advice which exists out there. Coles makes a final point about News Corp titles that I’d like to address:

"They'd be even more likely to preserve that exclusivity if they started threatening news aggregators like Google News with lawsuits."

What’s wrong with that idea?

Last year The Sun website increased traffic year-on-year by around 80%, given some month-on-month variance. Meanwhile The Sun’s newspaper circulation fell around 3 per cent. What this tells us is 1) the number of ‘Sun-readers’ is falling but the absolute number of people reading The Sun’s content is increasing, and 2) therefore it is benefiting greatly by readers finding its content via Google News and other aggregating technologies such as RSS.

Sue them? Murdoch should send them some Champagne and then work out the not unfathomable answer to more effectively monetising 18 million-plus visitors to The Sun’s website.

Comments

[malcolm coles]

To be fair, my main point was that, via News Corp, he has a ton of other content he could put on these sites if they were behind a paywall. I absolutely accept that he's not going to be successful charging for me-too news.

You say "Murdoch ... should work out the not unfathomable answer to more effectively monetising 18 million-plus visitors to The Sun’s website."

No one else has fathomed it - so why does everyone assume that (a) it can be fathomed and (b) it's not more profitable to do it some other way.

Imagine if the Sun Online was not The Sun paper put online but a portal of celebrity and sport videos and content - more like the red button on the Sky remote control. That might be worth paying for ...

Likewise, his pay model doesn't have to be browser arrives, browser hands over credit card, 20p deducted.

Bundling these subs with existing services (EG Sky broadband) seems a quick route to scale and success to me.

[Will Sturgeon]

Fair point Malcolm - and thanks for responding. Perhaps I focused too much on your point about "exclusive stories" - the kind that have been conspicuously absent from the tabloids for the duration of their slow decline thus far.

I've heard other people suggest a subscription to The Sun could be a value-add, bundled with a Sky subscription or that gated communities could host paid-for sports clips, or episodes of the Simpsons, or anything from Murdoch's empire, but then that isn't saving the newspaper industry so much as entirely redefining what it does, or graver still putting a distracting ribbon on its casket. And even then I remain unconvinced such a move would ever drive an overall increase in revenues.

As for fathoming how to make money from 18 million unique users, there are plenty of successful, commercial businesses still bringing in ad-revenues from free-clicks where they have the understanding, online heritage, credentials and ability to make that sell compelling. However, too many newspapers still regard their own online offerings as inferior - the B brand - so what are consumers and advertisers to think?

Free subscription could be one way forward, at least harvesting age, location, salary, data in the process and therefore providing more clearly defined demographic information to advertisers - eg. 5 million UK-based males aged 25-45, earning £25k+; the sort of thing advertisers start to get excited about (a crude example, I admit, in the interests of time and space). Let the advertisers pay to ring-fence the community, not the consumers. Though even the introduction of free subscription will see a tailing off in numbers.

It's a great debate though and I look forward to seeing how it pans out. Thanks again for your comment.