Murdoch’s news sites: Google needs to wait at the door

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch thinks of making his news sites accessible only to paying viewers. At the same time, search engines will be denied access, reports Emerce.

Murdoch, owner of, amongst others, the Wall Street Journal and the Times, says to benefit preciously little from traffic that reaches his sites via search engines. The bulk is hardly interested and he gains no loyal readers. “Ok, it’s good for web stats. So what?”

“Google gets the traffic and runs away with it. Yes, these are visitors that otherwise wouldn’t have come, but what good are they to me? I don’t know who they are, where they come from. I would rather have good, paying readers.”

This problem, says Murdoch, does not only affect his companies. Nearly all news media have trouble to remain healthy in the midst of all the free content and news circulating the Internet.

As a solution, Murdoch will render his site inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t pay. Some sites, like the Wall Street Journal, show unpaying visitors headlines and the first paragraphs. Anyone who wants to read more, needs to subscribe.

With taking these steps, Murdoch aims for a renewed respect for the journalistic and editorial trade.

Besides news sites with paid-for access, Murdoch sees much potential in e-readers. “They will make newspapers cheaper. Less paper will be printed and fewer trucks will have to make the rounds. I don’t think that printed papers will disappear within 20 years, but I don’t see anyone under 30 buy a printed paper these days.”