Sunday Times will be the testbed for Murdoch’s online access revolution

Posted by Oliver Luft on 7 August 2009 at 09:12
Tags: Media Business, National Newspapers, New Media, Newspapers, Online

Rupert Murdoch will use the Sunday Times as the testbed for his revolutionary plan to start charging for access to content on his newspaper websites by the middle of next year.

The Sunday Times is currently advertising for staff to launch a stand-alone website. At the moment all its content its put online through Times Online, website of its sister daily paper, the Times.

Senior sources told the Guardian the new website would launch at the end of November however it remains unclear how users would pay for access.

News International, the UK newspaper publishing subsidiary of Murdoch’s News Corp empire, could introduce a subscription service or instead opt for the pay-per-view approach which the Financial Times was reported to be in talks over introducing.