Following his comments last month in which he described aggregators as ‘kleptomaniacs’ and ‘plagiarists’, Rupert Murdoch has suggested News Corp could remove its sites from Google’s index.

Speaking in an interview with Australia’s Sky News (video below): “I think we will [remove our content from Google's index]. But that’s when we start charging.”

As Mumbrella explains: “Using the robots.txt protocol on a site indicates to automated web spiders such as Google’s not to index that particular page or to serve up links to it in users’ search results.”

In the interview, Murdoch also discusses what could be put behind potential news site pay walls.

Full post at this link…

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Australian media is busy speculating over Rupert Murdoch’s new idea for content access.

Margaret Simons of the Content Makers, reports how Caroline Overington, senior writer and columnist with The Australian (part of Murdoch’s News Limited) let slip that Rupert Murdoch’s pay wall plans might include a ‘cool new toy’ for accessing media content.

Simons reports from the Media140 conference:

“Overington said that News Limited had many wonderful plans of which they were very proud, and they could not be unveiled yet, but she believed they would lead people to pay for content.

“Then in the closing stages of the session, she referred to iTunes, and how people had turned to paying for music that they could get elsewhere for free because of the entry of a ‘cool new toy’ in the iPhone.

“She added: ‘That’s kind of what we are thinking about.’

“So what is it, I wonder? Some kind of deal with Apple, soon to release its new electronic reader? A competing product? Very intriguing.”

An update, pointing to coverage of the Apple Tablet negotiations, with more speculation on the ‘iRupert’ at this link.

And Overington at Media140 courtesy of SlowTV.

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Rupert Murdoch has said the schedule for introducing pay walls to newspaper website including the Sun, the Times and the New York Post is ’slipping’.

According to this MediaGuardian report, the News Corp owner said he couldn’t promise to meet the original date of before June next year (the end of News Corp’s financial year).

Murdoch has also been talking with rival publishers, including the Telegraph in the UK, it is reported.

Full story at this link…

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Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is ahead in the $800m-plus auction for the Travel Channel, ‘in a twist to a process that has underscored the revival in media moguls’ confidence on the industry outlook’, reports the FT.

Full story at this link…

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In a speech to the Beijing World Media Summit last Friday, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch attacked news aggregators and search engines. The ‘aggregators and plagiarists’ will soon have to pay the price for using publishers’ content for free, he said.

If publishers and news organisations don’t regain control they will pay ‘the ultimate price’ and it will be ‘the kleptomaniacs who triumph’, he told the industry event.

A Wordle of his keynote is understandably dominated by ‘China’, given the event’s location, with ‘digital’ overshadowing ‘newspapers’ in this instance:

Below you can read the speech in full:

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Publishers must take back control of their content from search engines, aggregators and bloggers, which have become the ‘preferred customer destinations for breaking news’, the Associated Press’ (AP) Tom Curley has said at an industry summit in Beijing.

“We will no longer tolerate the disconnect between people who devote themselves – at great human and economic cost – to gathering news of public interest and those who profit from it without supporting it,” Curley said (though slightly strangely citing Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook as key examples of threats).

Speaking separately at the event, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch said ‘the aggregators and plagiarists’ would soon have to pay the price for using publishers’ content for free.

If publishers and news organisations don’t regain control they will pay ‘the ultimate price’ and it will be ‘the kleptomaniacs who triumph’, he added.

Earlier this week the Associated Press (AP) said it is considering whether it could sell news items to online clients for a short, exclusive period.

The agency is also developing a new system for tracking its content online and monitoring copyright infringements.

Full story at this link…

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The Sydney Morning Herald has obtained an email to News Corp online staff, from the company’s digital chief executive, Richard Freudenstein, indicating that paid-for content plans, as announced by Murdoch in August, were now in a ’second phase’.

“The key points from Mr Freudenstein’s communique to News Digital Media (NDM) staff were that the company was reassured by the research it had conducted and that it was proceeding to the next round of development.

“‘News has conducted some audience research here in Australia and in the UK and US, which gives us confidence that, if we get the product and delivery system right, people will happily pay for news content online, on their computer, mobile, e-reader or other device,’ Mr Freudenstein told staff. ‘Here in Sydney we are about to move into the second phase of the project.’”

Full post at this link…

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The Wall Street Journal is ready to start charging for mobile access on the Blackberry and iPhone and the video site Hulu can be expected to introduce some kind of payment model, News Corp CEO and chairman Rupert Murdoch told delegates at the the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVIII Conference.

Full story at this link…

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According to LAObserved.com, Mark Sudock, senior features editor at Fox 11 has written an open letter to Rupert Murdoch, pleading that he halts lay-offs at the Los Angeles-based station.

‘Please, please do everything possible to keep what the media has accurately described as the Fox 11 bloodbath from being realised’ Sudock begs.

Around 117 workers are to due to be made redundant at KTTV Fox 11, a LA news station part of the Fox News network and owned by News Corporation. Sudock writes to Murdoch:

“The cuts are so severe that virtually no one remains on-site to technically maintain the facility. The cuts are so deep that our ability to cover the news as we did this past week (with pursuits, brush fires and the Michael Jackson funeral happening simultaneously) is in absolute jeopardy.

“Sir, if we believe the rumors, this station or the station group needs to save ten million dollars. These layoffs appear to be the solution. Please, Mr. Murdoch, see a bigger picture.”

Full letter at this link…

Via Roy Greenslade.

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In the wake of news that Fairfax – Australia’s major newspaper owner – has posted a net loss of $380 million for the year to June 30, its managing director has said he he would be ‘happy to talk’ to his rival, Murdoch’s News Corporation, about paid content plans.

Fairfax’s newspapers includeThe Sydney Morning Herald, The Age in Melbourne, and The Australian Financial Review.

Full story at this link…

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