One of the biggest changes in how news media is being handled in the UK has been going on for the last few weeks, as Rupert Murdoch announced plans to pull his news websites away from Google and instead set up a subscription based payment service that will charge users for content.
How well Murdoch’s plans will work is a subject of much debate online. A large amount of users believe that pulling sites from the world’s largest search engine would be a massive mistake and there’s no denying that doing so will lead to a huge loss of traffic. A few others believe that the system could work if Murdoch can work out a way to provide a service that people are willing to pay for.
Murdoch has proved on countless occasions that he understands what people are willing to pay for, and what they aren’t. The model isn’t new either. The Financial Times – while not distant from Google – charges people to view their content online and it can get away with it because it offers something that no other paper does.
However, many of Murdoch’s own news papers aren’t the kind of papers to offer unique content, so the mogul will need to think of a unique way to offer the service in order to get people to hand over their money.
Murdoch has already stated that he’s aware that the amount of hits to his websites will drop drastically but he believes by creating a much smaller – but paying – readership, he’ll actually make much more money than he currently does through hoping to claw back costs using advertising and partnership deals.
If any company is going to be able to pull off a full retreat from Google, it’s News Corp. The company can throw huge amounts of cash into marketing and investment of new services. However, with so many other qualities news sources and services available for free and indexed by Google it’s still going to be a big risk for the network.
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