Murdoch
Out of context: Reply #34
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- ukit0
Right, but the news on Drudge Report is exactly the same as on Fox or CNN. You're missing the fact that most of these large news sites already act as aggregators to an extent (or parasites as Rupert Murdoch likes to put it).
When was the last time you saw an actual investigative journalism piece broken on Fox or CNN? In terms of what you read on the web, it's the AP and other news services that do the actual information gathering. The NYT is the exception as they do some actual reporting but they are kind of in a class of their own.
I guess my point is that it's not controlling access to information that is really the issue here - there's no way to do that anyway which is what makes this paid content idea so absurd. The real problem these companies face is that they no longer monopolize the means of delivery. It used to be incredibly cost prohibitive to start a TV channel or a printing press. Now anyone can start a website pretty much for free. If you can figure out how to reverse that trend, maybe you can take things back to the way they were before.
In the meantime, maybe there really is no way for an operation like Fox to turn a profit online. But who cares - they and CNN are still raking it in from TV. The AP's revenue is going up. The ones who are on the ropes are newspapers and magazines, especially the regional ones. Do we have to start charging on the web just to keep them around?