Online payment schemes moving forward

The Financial Times and News Corp. each outlined plans to begin charging readers to access to their online content as publishers continue to seek ways to attract new revenues.
According to The Independent in the United Kingdom, The Financial Times is evaluating a “pay-per-article” system, perhaps based on Apple Inc.’s iTunes. The paper said that FT is examining a model in which a non-subscribing reader would pay a small fee for articles that otherwise would only be available to subscribers. The FT already has more than 117,000 subscribers who pay an annual fee for access.
The Independent said the FT hopes to have the system in place next year.
News Corp., meantime, wants to introduce charges to all of its Web sites by next summer.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch expects the fees to offset expenses associated with operating his stable of newspapers, which include in the United States the New York Post and the Dow Jones Local Media Group dailies.
“Quality journalism is not cheap,” he said during an earnings conference call. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news Web sites.”
To that end, The Guardian in the United Kingdom reported that The (London) Sunday Times will be the first News Corp. paper to experiment with charging readers to access content, beginning this fall.
According to the paper, The Times will launch a fee-based Sundaytimes.co.uk, Web site at the end of November.
The Guardian said the publisher hasn’t yet decided which mechanism or technology it will use to charge readers.