Embattled Murdoch
THINGS just get worse for Rupert Murdoch, whose embattled media empire is creaking under a mountain of debt. News reaches my ears that his Times and Sunday Times newspapers over at Wapping are losing more than £2 million a week, more than double the amount they were losing four months ago.
This comes on top of The Sun’s suicidal price cut to 20p an issue, which has cost Murdoch £100 million, and the failure of his freesheet, the Londonpaper. And his grand plan for saving his empire, charging people to view the content on his websites, looks like a non-starter. According to research by Harris Interactive, only 5 per cent of web users would be willing to pay to view their favourite news websites.
Murdoch announced earlier this year that he intended to charge for access to all his news sites, including the Sun, News of the World, Times and Sunday Times, by the end of next year. Looks like it may be time to go back to the drawing board for the old boy.