Murdoch Pounds the Paid Content Drum Again

Rupert Murdoch stated that the Wall Street Journal will begin to charge users to access the WSJ iPhone and BlackBerry content apps ($2/month for non-subscribers, $1 for subscribers.) He also told Goldman Sachs Communicopia attendees that the News Corp., NBCU, Walt Disney joint venture Hulu was looking into charging subscriptions to view TV content online.
In a very small mention in a Wall Street Journal article about Ad Markets the following item was included:

Separately, Mr. Murdoch said The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp., will start charging users for accessing the paper on mobile devices such as Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry smart phones and Apple Inc.’s iPhone. He said newspaper subscribers would pay $1 a week for mobile access, while others would pay $2 a week.

He also said the company is mulling plans to charge online subscriptions for Hulu, the video Web site that News Corp. launched with big media partners including NBC Universal. NBC Universal is 80% owned by General Electric Co. and 20% by Vivendi SA.

Typically a throw away comment like this merits very little attention. However, if the comment comes from arguably the most influential man in all of global media (and the number-one ranked Media Mogul in our Power Grid), people stand up and take notice.

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