News Corp Plans to Charge for Content

It doesn't pay to give it away for free and so News Corp thinks it can start charging for its content. But will the consumer pay? It seems that so much of the web is duplicative so that there are numerous ways to get what you need. If one site requires payment and another is free, it seems obvious which one the consumer will pick. What is not so obvious is how to make content exclusive and how to market its value in such a way that consumers also value it. Not so easy. The New York Times hopes it can, but we can only wait and see if they have the marketing skills to pull it off. To my knowledge, the Wall Street Journal, a News Corp business, has successfully built a fee based model for its business news, but it never gave it away to begin with. I am not sure that model is so easy to duplicate with its other web sites. Still, "News Corp. plans to increase revenue at its Internet businesses by charging customers for news and entertainment, according to Jonathan Miller, the company’s chief digital officer."