Research out today says The Times and its sister Sunday paper could lose more than 90% of their online audience as News International erects its “anti-social media” paywall. Read More »

Is this the dawn of the closed web and anti-social media? Or is the move by the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times to erect its paywall a journalistic and business dead-end. I think increasingly it is the latter. Read More »

News Corporation is to unveil an “innovative subscription model” next month, which could combine a number of cross-media offerings, including bundles with other News Corp entities, including BSkyB and 20th Century Fox. Read More »

Gordon Brown is having a bit of fun and he is having it at Rupert Murdoch’s expense. In an interview with the BBC’s Radio Times magazine the PM has expressed his doubts over the future of paywalls ahead of the Murdoch owned Times charging readers.

Murdoch’s empire as we all know famously ditched the Labour Party ahead of Brown’s keynote conference speech in October. And Brown has now taken this opportunity to hit back at Murdoch where it hurts the media baron most – in his pocket. Read More »

When I heard the news this morning that Rupert Murdoch has unveiled his plans to charge for The Times my reaction was two fold: 1. Finally; 2. At £2 a week that’s a cup of coffee. Good pitch.

Okay so the deal is you can buy The Times and Sunday Times for £1 a day or £2 a week. The daily £1 charge is what the paper costs on a week day and I don’t think they’re expecting the majority of people who pay to vote for that option. I mean why would you? Instead for the price of one cup of coffee, give or take, you can have access to the paper for an entire week. That’s £2 online versus £8.50 offline.

That strikes me as a good deal. I understand the reaction that some people had that £2 is too much, but I think there was a danger for News International in charging too little. If it did that there was I think a chance that people would not take it seriously and would say that it didn’t value its own product highly enough.

The £1 daily charge is almost a red herring. Its only job is to direct you to the £2 option, which I think is high enough to deliver some kind of return and show the value placed on the content of The Times while at the same time not being prohibitive. The subscription charges are also adding value. There are no details as yet but News International says the “weekly subscription will also give access to the epaper and certain new applications”. Maybe it has a

There are few readers who could not afford £2. What would be nice and what is perhaps a surprise is that it has not offered a monthly option as well. Something in the region of £5-£6 a month would make perfect sense. As does some kind of bundle package either tying up with other newspapers or with other News Corporation services like Sky? Maybe later.

Former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, now chief executive, News International, called the move a “defining moment for journalism” and “a crucial step” towards making the business of news “an economically exciting proposition”.

She is right in all of that and everyone will be watching. Not just in newspaper offices in London, but in New York and Paris and in other cities across the world as owners, publishers and editors face conundrum of how to stay in business and how to keep the news flowing and working out if they too can charge.

The New York Times will make its move next year, but in the meantime others will announce plans. There are a lot of questions. Clearly some readers will desert The Times for free content rivals feeling that £2 is too much a price. They can turn to The Guardian which has said over and over it will not charge. There is the BBC to contend as well. This morning I heard the news on R4′s Today programme before flicking to the story on BBC News on my Blackberry. Always hard to beat. There is Alexander Lebedev as well. What will he do now he has control of the Independent? Does he have some radical plan up his sleeve? Is he thinking about a free national newspaper?

At the prices pitched Murdoch has a good chance of success. There is clear evidence at the top end of the market that people pay. The question everyone wants an answer to is are there enough paying customers to make it work?

There is an expression in baseball about players that don’t make it in the majors they are said to only have “a cup of coffee” before heading back to the minors. Murdoch is going to be hoping that readers people stick around for a little more than that and buy more than one cup of coffee otherwise this is going to be a very short ride. Personally I’m a little optimistic about their chances. I really think people will pay. They do, after all, for just about everything else.