News Corporation will charge for newspaper websites, says Rupert Murdoch

Rupert ­Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a ­"malfunctioning" business model.

Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an "epochal" debate over whether to charge. "That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal's experience," he said.



Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, he replied: "We're absolutely looking at that." Taking questions on a conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin "within the next 12 months‚" adding: "The current days of the internet will soon be over."

News Corp's newspaper division barely broke even, with quarterly profits collapsing from $216m to $7m year-on-year. Advertising revenue in Britain fell by 21% and Murdoch revealed the Sunday Times is struggling: "It's still in profit, but only just so." The tabloids had fared better, aided by price battles at supermarkets which spend heavily on print promotions.