Murdoch's last gamble

Everyone is getting rather uptight about Rupert Murdoch's comments that all his news sites will be charging for content within the next twelve months.

But what does this really tell us?

Personally for me there has been one organisation ie Murdoch's that has transcended all the other media organisations but yesterday's losses at NewsCorp mean that even he can no longer buck the trend that the old model has failed.

There is a great post from Polis' Charlie Beckett who asks Is Rupert Murdoch an asset stripper, gambler or genius?

three possible rationales I can see for what Mr Murdoch is doing:

1. ‘Asset-stripping’: get as much cash out of these businesses as you can without completely killing the customer base to pump up the balance sheet while other media organisations burn their capital and plunge further into debt.

2. ‘The gamble’: If a few titles go down that just proves their weakness. Whatever is left standing will dominate a depleted market as the rivals follow in the wake of News International. In the same way that putting the price up of the Sunday Times actually strengthened its market dominance. If you are a sector leader - such as The Sun - then you have the brand community to set the pace and help dictate consumer behaviour.

3. Genius: Murdoch understands that enough of the public want to preserve their source of news and will be prepared to pay. They realise that they have had a free ride. They identify with the product and recognise that like anything worth having, you have to pay. Just like Sky. While the Internet enthusiasts preach the value of Free, most people pay for a lot of things online (shopping, books etc) as well as for broadband itself. Murdoch has clever schemes to wrap the payments into other services that will make it feel aspirational and valuable to pay a small charge for premium products.

For me it is the last one