News Corp to set up online news consortium
News Corporation is in talks with major US publishers to set up an online consortium to charge for online news content.
The company’s chief digital officer Jonathan Miller has had meetings with publishers including Hearst, The Washington Post and The New York Times, about the possibility of setting up a platform that will allow users to use one account to access subscriber content across partner sites, according to reports.
Earlier this month, Rupert Murdoch announced plans to implement a paid-for model for access to online news content across his portfolio of websites following the success of the company’s subscription fee for The Wall Street Journal.
In response to News Corp’s $3.4 billion (£2 billion) net loss for the year to the end of June, Murdoch said the free model era was over and he plans to start charging users to access his websites, including The Sun and The Times.
“Quality journalism is not cheap,” Murdoch said. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.”
A day after Murdoch’s announcement, The Financial Times said it would follow News International’s lead and launch a pay-per-view model for access to the FT.com.