Rupert Murdoch’s London Times is about to show what a big consumer newspaper can — or can’t — do when it builds a high online paywall even though its competition remains free.
The Times and the Sunday Times, which are published by Murdoch’s News Corp., will begin charging for online access starting in June, while competitors such as the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror remain free for all online.
The Times and the Sunday Times had been expected to institute some sort of pay scheme this year. Murdoch has been arguing that newspapers cannot continue to give away their expensive content for free on the web and expect advertisers to foot the whole bill — an increasingly popular argument once even online ad spending fell during the recession.
