How Ruper Murdoch's charging strategy changed online.

When history reflected this much talked about saga, the result was unequivocal" Murdoch won.

He did so not by subtlety of persuasion, but by brute force - something those who have squared up to him in boardrooms and been on the sharp end of him in the unions e.g. Wapping, know all too well.

Taking on the world was a different matter, but Murdoch, extending Foucaults concept that power begets more power, had more to gain, than lose - rewriting history and the bloggersphere as the man who saved journalism and kicked those "petulant free-loading Net kids" back to their craggy bedrooms.

When the pecuniary seed was sown for paying to read online journalism, critics laughed, many waited to see what the grand ol' newspaper tycoon had as his deck. They waited, and waited. Some penned blogs ridiculing his approach - the non-strategy.

But they forgot the measure of the man. They forgot his radical and unheard of strategy to towards the British Premiership; its history reveals

The League decided to take the radical step of assigning television rights to Sky TV. At the time charging fans to watch televised sport was a relatively new concept...

They forgot his battles at Wapping or any number of thousands of deals he'd won and lost.

Quietly while net experts derided him, the industry held its collective breath wishing him to succeed. Murdoch's success would be theirs in a climate when mostly all newspapers were running on red.

If we can get the news elsewhere, particularly at the BBC, why bother with his newspapers, was the argument. Also unlike time-sensitive news ( financial) it carried no premium. Other than being written by experienced, expensive journalists.

It wasn't soon after until his populist News of the World went paywall, then the nation's populist red top, the Sun and across the pond the the New York Times followed. Then the damn broke and en masse they followed erecting walls.

Professional journalism had stayed an imminent execution, but more importantly forced the argument that it needs to be paid for. You want quality, you pay.

Murdoch's strategy was simple, no different from a General testing the defences of his opposing force with strikes and retreat, from the siege of Malta to the likes of Operation Just Cause when with loud music blaring from speakers, the instructions were simple: just wait.

Wait!

Few media moguls could afford such a strategy. Here's the maths. Go paywall lose out on advertising, lose customers and dollars/pounds.

So how did he cushion the blow? By getting the more profitable wings of News corp to shore up his losses. But how many subscribers could the newspaper realistically have expected from potential registrants, having lost 2/3rds of its audience in 2010.

Dan Sabbagh, formerly the media editor of the Times, puts that figure at 150,000 user between free subscribers and online registrants of 15,000. This may have seemed paltry, compared to the Time's advertising income, measurably more, but at £2 a throw for a week, that works out at £120,000 a month, more than a million pounds a year.

1995, the web and newspapers



As this rare piece of footage shows way back in 1995, me presenting the news, a year after the Internet and web eased its way into newspapers, the fundamental mistake they made back then was, as with most new platforms e.g. CDRoms, kiosks, was to give their assets away.

But they had to. They Net was new and big news. It was free, and you'd be damned as a newspaper proprietor for not taking advantage of a free medium to sell you wares - which became the rub.

The Times online in 1995 attracted 30,000 online subscribers - a massive number for those times. It was a land grab. By 2000 newspapers, though off to a good start, would be playing catch up with the intelligent web.

But by 2000s the mystic of web journalism had disappeared. What the newspapers couldn't fathom, they could buy in and that's when the debate started to turn.

Profit margins of 15-30% were now under threat. The economy was on a bender. Murdoch had lost in his acquisition of MY Space and now someone needed to pay. The papers oomed and aarmed. The New York Times did and then retreated, but Murdoch had the bit between his teeth and as his spat with websites and google grew, it became obvious this was personal.

And so long as his pockets allowed, he'd bunker down. And the longer he bunkered down, the more others joined him. To the point, news or primary valued-news undertaken by all the major newspapers recognised its premium status and went paywall.

And that ladies and gentlemen in 2016 was how we came to pay for the web.

P.s Just so you know, I'm no Murdochite. This piece emerged from studies I'm doing independently for a Phd study around TV and supervening processes and trending.

Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke

We all have virtual mentors - figures whom may have passed away or not within reach whose work we so admire that it plays a part in shaping our own.

And when you reflect on the impact of your mentor, there's most likely a scene or event that you can place yourself at which is your year zero of your fan affair.

Like many scifiers I was heavily influenced by Arthur C Clarke's writings. Oh and Marvel comics.

I'd bought a futuristic manual at a bric a brac shop, second hand which became a reference book to turn to, particularly when reading Applied Chemistry at university.

Clarke' super science had chemisty centre point playing an extraordinary role - the possibility of fission. For a novice chemist and dreamer like me it was manna from heaven.

Clarke's forsight about Sat comms, coupled with a few others I'd come across: E.M Forster's The Machine Stops and Vannevar Bush's As we may think telegraphed this bizzare unimaginable world with something we now call the Internet.

The Internet under ARPANET was some way off.

Science Fiction has done a lot that we can be thankful for.

Though thank goodness though they've stopped killing off the black dude in sci fi films after the opening credits.

I remember hsoting a radio prog a while back when this actor made a strong case analysing Sci fi flicks which in the first half,the black dude goes, then the woman - though I didn't know at the time, but the censors would not let you show a woman being shot on screen or suffering a fatal death.

Right where was I....

Yes, so today this morning I came across this; a neatly typed series of letters in a book I'd written to someone with a strong underlying pretext . The date: Tuesday Dec 1990 8:13 PM. .... the spoils of youth eh?

Dadawoman pondered to peer at the universe from the hatch of her helius II shuttle. It was peaceful in he pod. The flickers of light and irredescent flames from distance stars made her recall memories from the parrallel universe thirty light years ago.

She had met mongoji-arantula and shared quark-filling moments with his amber. They had been warm; the light they bathed in as they emerged under the amber inducing rays that brought goose pimples over her thorax.

It seemed like yesterday, when she was caught in the cross winds; her life turned sideways by her decision to pilot a solo mission to the Agorra.

Faustian-kye had inadvertently colided with her pod. She toiled to keep her hellius under control.

It appeared at first she would collide with the planetary particles. She wracked her inner self for what seemed eternity. She could have blown the hull gasket to lessen the gyrations but that would have meant sacrificing toto, her pet cheecho.

Her thoughts were truly symbiotic. Cheecho would stay whatever the costs. It was a rare species to be celebrated from the Agorra triangle. Warriors fought to the bitter end for a chance to return with one. She had acquired hers through exceptional circumstances.

{ EDIT 4 PARAS}

Dada gave a final burst to the fuel injector; her videodell having captured her mood asked in seminal tone:

"Dell 1 wants to know why Dada, strong in faith, looks so sad".
"There are somethings even a hyperintelligent computer like yourself dell will never understand".
End ++

If I ran an institition I'd hold a class called "Dreamers!"