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Eric Schmidt says in general paid content plans don't work online

Print publications that run websites are fighting to convince their peers and readers that paying for content online is the only way to go. The problem is that a generation of internet users are used to getting content for free and getting them to pay for the content will be difficult if not impossible.

Publishing tycoon Rupert Murdoch has previously stated that his company will begin charging for access to the content on all of its websites. Currently the only publication that charges for content in Murdoch's empire is the Wall Street Journal.

Shortly after Murdoch made the decree that all of News Corps. websites would charge for access to content, Google CEO Eric Schmidt scoffed at the plan and said that newspapers don’t want to "piss off" readers. Schmidt has again scoffed at Murdoch's plan to charge for online content.

Schmidt told attendees at a meeting of a group of British broadcasting executives that it would be very hard to charge for content online because the same content is available free.

Reuters quotes Schmidt saying, "In general these models have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity. So my guess is for niche and specialist markets ... it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news."

Schmidt is basically saying that the Wall Street Journal being successful with charging for content online is the exception, not the rule.

Murdoch has still not rolled out his pay for content scheme to any of the other websites in his publishing empire; perhaps he knows deep down that wishing readers would pay and getting them to do so are two very different things.

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RE: Faux News - We Distort, You Abide.
By ImJustSaying on 9/18/2009 2:24:19 PM , Rating: 1
I find it funny that you should use part of Fox's slogan of "Fair and Balanced" when criticizing another network's slogan used to describe Fox, "Fixed News." (MSNBC: Keith Olberman's Countdown).

Just saying....


RE: Faux News - We Distort, You Abide.
By Octoberblue on 9/18/09, Rating: -1
RE: Faux News - We Distort, You Abide.
By headbox on 9/18/2009 6:55:36 PM , Rating: 2
The fact that you're not even aware of the manipulation done by the agenda-driven media empire, with Murdoch as chief neo-con architect, makes your entire line of thought irrelevant. Fox is just another fear-mongering corporation that sells us a 2-party system instead of a truly independent view of our nation.

The biggest joke is the idea that Republicans are "conservative" with their interventionist overseas empire, big deficit spending, loss of moral reputation, and regulation on everything ...but just a little less than the "left" so they can still say they're on the "right."


By Shining Arcanine on 9/18/2009 7:49:50 PM , Rating: 2
I think that you are not even aware of the fact that you lack a truly independent view of the situation.

You keep going on about it without any sort of thought as to what the actual situation is like. The biggest joke is that my description of you accurately describes most people when they talk about politics.


By Flunk on 9/19/2009 10:19:56 AM , Rating: 2
There really is no such thing as a "balanced" news agency, the whole idea is laughable. In theory such an agency should report with equal biases for all sides, and I really can't see anyone truly being able to do that. Unpopular opinions will never be voiced, even for the purpose of balance.

What news should be is unbiased, without any spin and in that regard all of the major US news services fail miserably.


RE: Faux News - We Distort, You Abide.
By Reclaimer77 on 9/19/2009 2:03:14 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
The fact is, any balanced news source is going to appear right-wing to people who are accustomed to the extremely left-wing traditional outlets.


Truth.

Give me a break guys. The coverage by the other big networks besides Fox on pollitical evens is just terribly slanted and biased. Fox isn't perfect, and sure Murdock is a douche, but they are the most balanced out there.

Asking hard questions and pointing out what a disaster this administration is isn't "right wing bias". It's called good journalism.


RE: Faux News - We Distort, You Abide.
By cruisin3style on 9/21/2009 1:39:24 PM , Rating: 2
yeah, truth...

Like when Fox News "accidentally" labels that congressman who had a fling in Argentina and another recent congressman conducting similar mischievous acts Democrat next to their state instead of Republican (which they were)

i.e. D - GA or whathaveyou

I realize I am somewhat biased (to the left) myself, but if you had seen the Outfoxed documentary or seen some of the completely INSANE things fox puts on it's (mostly nighttime, as I understand it) lineup that I have seen clips of on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's shows....

yeah, unbiased may not be possible, but biased is Fox News baby


RE: Faux News - We Distort, You Abide.
By ChristopherO on 9/22/2009 1:43:15 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Like when Fox News "accidentally" labels that congressman

You do realize *all* the networks do things like this all the time? Places like Media Bistro (the TVNewser blog) tend to catch the egregious ones. Of which there are a lot, on all networks. Singling out Fox is just disingenuous in that regard. It's usually just human error, some graphic guy in the control room, who isn't paid very much, just makes a typo, and a producer catches it later. There was also the issue awhile ago where MSNBC or CNN put something up during one of Bush's speeches that appeared to be inflammatory, but it was a system error message from a crashed editing box.

Things like this happen, get over it.

I personally hate all cable news. CNN is boring as heck, seriously, where do they get their anchors? MSNBC is obviously heavily biased to the left. They were a failing network, waaay behind in 3rd place, and made a conscious decision to go "all liberal" and are now in second place behind Fox leaving CNN in the caboose. Fox is obviously tilted right, but seriously, what's wrong with that?

You *always* need contrary opinions to keep a check and balance on things. The rest of the media is going quite soft on Obama right now. Fox isn't. During Bush's years, Fox was more favorable, and everyone else wasn't.

Frankly I wish there were more viewpoints available, but we have what we have.

For the record, the only news show I watch is Special Report w/Bret Bair. It's Fox 6pm ET. Best out there. The first 40 minutes is hard news, no celebs, no sports, no crazy outlandish murders, etc. It's like the video equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. The last 20 minutes is like a Sunday talk-show panel. Most of the time they are pretty fair with right-to-left people, some days they only have moderate-to-conservative panelists. If it's a dumb topic, I just skip-it. I'm really there for the first 40 minutes.

If anyone knew of something similarly unbiased with hard-news-only (politics, world, etc), I'd be willing to hear about it.


By ChristopherO on 9/22/2009 1:50:58 PM , Rating: 2
Oh, Jim Leher on PBS. I forgot about him. Bret Bair and Jim Leher's Newshour are similar. If you like one, you might want to check the other. Jim can get stories that Fox can't (since democrats usually refuse to talk to Fox to appease the left-wing, same reason republicans avoid MSNBC), and Fox can get stories that Jim can't since they've got a vastly bigger budget than PBS.


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