{"id":5195,"date":"2009-08-05T22:11:23","date_gmt":"2009-08-06T03:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5195"},"modified":"2009-08-05T22:13:33","modified_gmt":"2009-08-06T03:13:33","slug":"no-surf-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5195","title":{"rendered":"No Surf for You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp might be losing it.<\/p>\n

Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Wednesday<\/a> that the company intends to charge for all of its news Web sites. “Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,” Murdoch said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First off, it’s a long time since I’ve heard anyone say “quality” and “journalism” in the same sentence with a straight face. Second, News Corp doesn’t “give” anything away. Murdoch has built an empire by attracting viewers to content tailored for a target demo, and selling their attention to advertisers.<\/p>\n

It’s a decades-old formula premised on the fact that you can’t possibly charge viewers, readers or surfers enough to pay for the content and <\/em>make a profit.<\/p>\n

Unless Murdoch is able to effect some sort of collusion among media conglomerates to form a near monopoly, I don’t see how he can decommoditize news content.<\/p>\n

Then again, News Corp owns half the media industry on their own:<\/p>\n

All the “Fox” Channels including Fox Sports, FX, Fox Business Network, Fox Movie Channel, Fox News Channel, Fox College Sports, etc.<\/p>\n

Print Media and Publishing including The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, Barons, The Sun, Dow Jones, and Harper Collins.<\/p>\n

Entertainment and Web properties including American Idol, AskMen, hulu.com, MySpace, Rotten Tomatoes and 20th Century Fox.<\/p>\n

Still, each property has a direct and equally viable competitor.<\/p>\n

Assuming each News Corp property carries News Corp news content (with some exceptions, for example the movie studios), charging for the content will put each at a disadvantage as most consumers of news content don’t care so much about the quality and\/or have long since discounted the media as a source of truth or truly useful information.<\/p>\n

Case in point: ever noticed traffic and weather reports are never accurate or useful?<\/p>\n

People won’t pay for what is essentially a diversion from the rigors of daily life. Shaving in silence is out of fashion. People read the news on their Blackberry because they can.<\/em> Quantity of information trumps quality.<\/p>\n

If News Corp starts charging a fee, clients will find what they need elsewhere. That cat’s been out of the bag a long time.<\/p>\n

What say you?<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
How Much Would you pay for “Quality” News Content?<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n$50 per Month<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n$20 per Month<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n$10 per Month<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nNothing; I’ll find it elsewhere for Free<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nI find everything I need at Shot In The Dark<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0\u00a0<\/center><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
pollcode.com free polls<\/a><\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/form>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp might be losing it. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Wednesday that the company intends to charge for all of its news Web sites. “Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,” Murdoch said. First off, it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}