Analysis - Murdoch attacks aggregators and regulators

[HEXUS]

Rupert Murdoch has identified aggregators and misguided government intervention as main threats to the press.

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[Singh400]

Cor he likes to harp on doesn't he! No one cares mate, the free/internet media is here to stay. And if you want to charge for your so called "news" go ahead. You will be the one to suffer.

[aidanjt]

I submit, that anything written or said by Rupe should be behind the pay-wall, anything less is hypocrisy.

[BobF64]

I find it amusing.

He wants people to pay for his news, and stop stealing it.

Well, its easy, lock it ALL away behind a password protected area, stop search engines trawling it, and youre sorted.

Only, I cant see search engines being blocked because he knows full well that noone will even know they have any news.

[Stefan_C]

Murdoch has many opponents and critics, but he is the person most conspicuously trying to tackle the problem of maintaining quality journalism

I'm sorry, what? It's debatable whether you can call FOX news or The Sun quality journalism. Entertaining and well constructed, sure, but... quality?

[cheesemp]

I find it amusing.

He wants people to pay for his news, and stop stealing it.

Well, its easy, lock it ALL away behind a password protected area, stop search engines trawling it, and youre sorted.

Only, I cant see search engines being blocked because he knows full well that noone will even know they have any news.

True - Go on Murdock - go do it. I can then shut out your views from my sight there by doing me a big favour!

[zoomee]

NExt thing you know he'll be asking for the news to be copyrighted

[amdavies]

Faux news....

[alsenior]

murdoch is not dumb. he is upto something here. he could have easily blocked google weeks ago but he still has not. is he waiting for everyone else to do this then he is going to capitalise on every one moving there content behind paywalls

[Revilgo]

Reminds me of King Canute trying to hold back the technology tide to save his precious old business model. Frankly it's not the aggregators he should be worried about in the future but real-time news and information dissemination enablers such as Twitter etc. But with any luck he probably won't be around by then....

[BobF64]

murdoch is not dumb. he is upto something here. he could have easily blocked google weeks ago but he still has not. is he waiting for everyone else to do this then he is going to capitalise on every one moving there content behind paywalls

Oh, i dont think its so much that "hes up to something", its more than he knows the reality of it all.

Ignoring people just lifting stories for their own websites, I would think that a very large number of people reading News Corp stories do so via other sites, either by searching for it or getting it via RSS type things.

Out and out blocking everything from trawling his sites would only do one thing, remove all his readers. No sane person deliberately eliminates almost their entire readership.

[Saracen]

It's all about achieving a commercial model that blends the real-world reality of the internet with the commercial reality of a business model.

Make no mistake, putting content behind a login screen and accessible to paying subscribers only does work ..... if you have unique content that people value enough to be prepared to pay for it.

Most people will recognise that simple "news" is not going to be something you can charge for, certainly not while you have other organisations (including but not limited to the BBC) that offer it free .... or rather, free at the point of delivery, as the government like to say about the health service. We do all (or nearly all, anyway) pay for the BBC, but not to receive specific content. We pay (presumably) our "licence" fee, and we get all the content, be it period dramas, wildlife documentaries, some premium sports events or, yes, news. But we pay for it in that licence fee.

Regardless of what we all might think of the "quality" of journalism in the Murdoch empire, at least in does provide another source of information, and at least in terms of frontline news crews filming reports and events, it adds a perspective. Then, of course, there's the filter applied to it, of comment and presentation. But one thing that keeps us well-informed (or as well as we can expect) is that there are a number of different organisations gathering and reporting news. If you blend the results, and try to sift out the opinion and spin, you'll get about as close to the actual events as we can expect to get without being there ourselves.

But putting news crews out into the field, all over the world, is seriously expensive and , one way or the other, be it BBC licence fee, subscription websites or the cost of a newspaper or magazine, we aare going to end up paying for it, or it'll simply cease to happen.

That's the challenge Murdoch, and all other news organisations face, which is how to monetise a model which, due to the internet, has changed beyond all recognition from a few years ago, but just about all publishers and news outlets face a similar challenge .... including, I might add, HEXUS.

I have NO involvement in the business side of HEXUS, so what follows is assumption and guesswork, but in order to run offices, pay salaries and support the infrastructure that brings you HEXUS content, money has to come in from somewhere. It could be advertising, it might be commercial tie-ups, it might be that there are commercial operations nothing to to with the publishing side and that the "free" content is cross-subsidised. I don't know. I do know it's being paid for somehow.

And Murdoch has the same problems .... on a little larger scale.

We're all used to "free" content, because it always has been so. but don't make the mistake of thinking that necessarily means it always will be. The net is still pretty much a juvenile, still growing up in the business world. Some organisations were certainly prepared to put a lot of stuff out there "free" either because something else (like advertising) was paying for it, or as an initial "investment" to drive up user numbers, because it's only when you have a large userbase that you have what's necessary to justify advertising rates to advertisers. We see this approach all over the place .... free Google searches supported by advertising revenue, free gameplay supported by purchasable "options" and upgrades and, of course, "free" news supported by other operations and/or advertising.

But if the model doesn't pay off, sooner or later, it'll collapse, and it's not just Murdoch. Unless you have a wealthy philanthropist indulging in a hobby, sooner or later every significant sized website has to find a way to pay for itself.

Can Murdoch put basic news behind a "subscriber only" locked door? Not while other organisations (like the BBC) are still offering it free, unless he wants to lose readers altogether. But can he put "premium" content behind a subscriber door? He can if it is unique and the value perceived by viewers is higher than the subscription. After all, we all have access to free-to-air TV, and nowadays even Freeview and Freesat, etc, yet millions of people still pay Sky subs. Why? Work that out and you'll work out what Murdoch is up to on the net.

And don't bet too much on him not getting away with it, either. Just bear in mind that a classic negotiating stance is not to start from where you want to end up. You go for something beyond that, then compromise. When buying a second hand car, you generally don't start at your top price .... if you want the best deal. Don't assume he expects to get everything he says he wants, or that it's what he actually wants.

[Scott B]

I couldn't have put it better myself Saracen.