Financial Times editor says most news websites will charge within a year

The Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, has predicted that "almost all" news organisations will be charging for online content within a year.

Barber said building online platforms that could charge readers on an article-by-article or subscription basis was one of the key challenges facing news organisations.

"How these online payment models work and how much revenue they can generate is still up in the air," Barber said in a speech at at a Media Standards Trust event at the British Academy last night.

"But I confidently predict that within the next 12 months, almost all news organisations will be charging for content."

Barber is the latest leading executive to suggest the newspaper industry has to radically overhaul its existing business model.

Rupert Murdoch said in May that he expected his News Corporation newspaper websites to start charging for access within a year. The News Corp chairman and chief executive said free newspaper websites were a "flawed" business model.

Murdoch's rival, the New York Times, could begin charging for online news within the next three to four weeks.

Barber said last night that the Financial Times had pioneered the concept of a "frequency model", giving access to a limited number of articles on the web before asking users to subscribe.

"We are seeing sustained and growing revenue as a result of our strategy of premium pricing for quality, niche global content – crucial at a time of weakening advertising," he added.

"Many news organisations are following suit in charging, latterly the New York Times which had previously come down in favour of free access to its own content."

The Financial Times website, FT.com, has more than 1.3 million non-paying registered users worldwide, with another 110,000 paying subscribers.

Barber said he had not come to "preside over a wake" but to make some "modest suggestions on how good journalism can not only survive but thrive in the digital age".

He said the new digital world "poses a threat but also an enormous opportunity to established news organisations", and warned that the "mediocre middle" was most at risk.

Barber made a distinction between "crafted" journalism and blogs "largely based on opinion rather than established fact [and] becoming increasingly influential in setting the news agenda". "Bloggers have broken important stories and will continue to do so," he said.

But he said they "do not operate according to the same standards as those who aspire to and practise crafted journalism. They are often happy to report rumour as fact, arguing that readers or fellow networkers can step in to correct those "facts" if they turn out to be wrong. They are rarely engaged in the pursuit of original news: their bread and butter is opinion and comment."

"I do not wish to sound precious. British journalism has always put a premium on the scoop and it has long blurred the distinction between news and comment," said Barber.

"The rise of bloggers may simply signal the last gasp of the age of deference, not just in politics but also in general social mores in Britain, America and elsewhere. Nor does it follow that the worldwide web has dumbed down journalism.

"On the contrary: it has created opportunities to "smarten up". News organisations with specialist skills and knowledge have the opportunity to thrive. The mediocre middle is much more at risk."

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