Wake up Murdoch it’s the Internet Age! August 11, 2009

It seems that everyman and his dog has announced a new music service over the past few weeks, with rumours of a deal between 3 UK and Spotify, BT and Sky getting in on the act and Orange teaming up with Universal and Channel4 to launch Monkey, so what does that have to do with the title of today’s blog?

As you are probably aware, Rupert Murdoch announced earlier this week that he plans to shake up the newspaper industry by introducing a pay-per-view model to all his news websites, including the Times, the Sun and the News of the World, by next summer.  This has resulted in strong reactions from both the media industry and general public, with a flood of online and print articles, blog postings, tweets and even Facebook groups being created to rally like-minded folks.

My personal stance on the situation and one that I strongly believe will be the response of the masses, is that I will just go somewhere else for my content.  This may include alternative traditional news sites, but also Twitter, which continues to break stories, and a selection of blogs and forums that cater to my interests.  The fact is that Rupert doesn’t have a monopoly on news and intelligence, so why pay when I can get it for free elsewhere?

So what does this have to do with music services, or was it simply a way to drive traffic to the blog? Well dear reader, the launch of these freemium music services is an attempt to create a way, for music lovers, service providers and music labels, to mutually benefit from and enjoy this content rather than use unscrupulous file sharing sites.

Murdoch however seems blissfully unaware of the fact that the masses have never paid for his content, online news, and even less are paying for the physical copies on the newsstands.  Why would we start paying now when there are so many alternative sources available, for example Twitter and Google News?  Is this a sign that Murdoch is out of touch with what’s actually happening?  MySpace anyone?

The content industry, be it film, music or the written word, is changing to where consumers are no longer willing to pay, especially when it’s available for free.  This is a conundrum, as we don’t want to pay but we also want access to more quality content, so what’s the solution?

As always, answers on a postcard and the best will be read out in front of the class.