Media Bites-November 24 2009

Murdoch, Microsoft and Money

This is quite an interesting turn of events from earlier press stating that News Corp intends to charge for content. That statement has encouraged other newspapers, including the Daily News and the Boston Globe to put some of their content behind a pay wall. While I don't agree with that strategy, I can certainly understand the need to explore that revenue model.

The latest details emerging make me scratch my shaved head and wonder where is all of this going.

First, News Corp is bent on having indexed articles removed from Google listings. According to a recent article in mediabuyerplanner.com (http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/), Murdoch states that " free content devalues the work and that indexing on Google News is stealing."

Now lets add Microsoft to the mix-word is that Bing is considering paying publishers to list their content on the search engine.

Seems to me the main objective here is that News Corp is making an attempt to force Google to pay newspapers and other publishers for content. Google claims to send news organizations 100,000 clicks per minute and does it because publishers want to be found-and if the pub doesn't want to be listed, they aren't. Google has the economy of scale to resist any pressure from outside sources so removing the indexed articles will not have large scale effect on their revenue.

So who is going to be cashing in if this little scenario plays out? You guessed it: publishers.

They will receive revenue from Bing. Murdoch will now have a dual revenue stream for all News Corp websites as the company will get payment for listing and payment for content subscriptions. Next, we'll see other struggling publications attempting that. And why wouldn't they? If a powerhouse like News Corp can do it, why can't they?

What on the surface could appear as a life raft for some print publications will actually quicken their demise. You're not listed on Google? Oh, I have to pay to access the news I need? What, there's a subscription cost to get to the news listings on Bing? See ya. Plenty of other local and national websites that will give me the news when I want it and not ask me to pay for it.

Its all about consuming news whenever and wherever I want. And by the way, I'm not interested in paying for it.