Top papers to charge online news

Three of the world's most influential newspapers have finally come to terms with the notion that charging readers online is the only way to survive. There is far less agreement on how to go about that, the publishers of The New York Times, The Times of London and the Financial Times made clear at this week's Reuters Global Media Summit.

The New York Times Co's launch of its long-awaited online payment system early next year will be the latest effort to convince readers to pay for what they have come to expect free. It will join News Corp's Times of London, whose own tests have achieved mixed results. "We create very valuable, important content and we are trying to ensure we get fairly compensated for it," said News Corp Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey.

Carey and other top executives speaking this week at the Reuters summit are trying to calibrate prices and bundles of products that will not alienate advertisers, fearful of steep drop-offs in readers, and consumers, who are accustomed to free access. News Corp also owns the Wall Street Journal, which remains one of the few newspapers to have generated a healthy online business from subscriptions over the past decade.