"Diller Calls Free Web Content a Myth" -- Media Moguls say Free Internet Ending..

[KoKo]

By Brett Pulley and Andy Fixmer

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, said Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, joining the refrain of media moguls who say an era of free Internet content is ending.

The media and technology executive, whose company runs the Ask.com search engine and the Match.com dating service, said it’s “mythology” to view the Internet as a system of free communications.

“It is not free, and is not going to be,” Diller said today at the Fortune Brainstorm conference in Pasadena, California. In addition to IAC, he is chairman of Expedia Inc., the online travel service, and Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc.

Diller, 67, joined a group of media chiefs, from Liberty Media Corp.’s John Malone to Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger, who are challenging the accepted model that consumers pay for Internet access and then content is free. Diller predicted there will be three revenue streams: advertising, subscriptions and transactions.

Disney, the world’s biggest media company, is developing a subscription-based product for the Internet, Iger said on July 22 at the conference.

The Burbank, California-based company has opportunities to increase sales from the Web, Iger said. Online advertising can be improved, and marketers can target consumers by tracking their activities and interests. Subscription products are particularly promising to the company.

‘Willing to Pay’

“We have ample evidence both in traditional and new media that people are willing to pay for quality, to pay for choice and to pay for convenience,” Iger said. “And they are willing to pay for what they perceive as value.”

Companies from Disney to New York Times Co. are seeking ways to get more revenue from the Internet and counter the loss of traditional media subscribers and advertisers.

New York Times said in a survey of print subscribers this month that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site. The company also asked whether existing print subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free.

More about what "News Corp" is planning at..........

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZeenjkAYFIE#

[MineralMan]

1. The news is that the news can't find a business model for

the web that works for them. In the meantime, free content abounds. Sorry, Charlie.

[zonkers]

2. Whatever, Barry. Go collect art and have cocktails in the Hamptons.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Aren't we already paying?

I pay for internet access and for various content already.

Just about every site has advertising, and some allow you to get rid of the ads by paying a fee (e.g., DU). Some of the news sites (either Slate or Salon, maybe both) have premium memberships that allow more extensive access. ESPN does the same thing.

If it goes further than that, I think these people will be surprised how unsuccessful and unprofitable it will be.

[FormerDittoHead]

8. Boo hoo. It's (practically) free to THEM. Prices will be set by what the market is willing to pay.

Boo hoo. They used to have to pay for printing and mailing.

They used to pay for broadcast towers and fight for licenses.

They used to have to jockey for position on cable TV networks.

NOW, ALL OF THAT IS *FREE* TO THEM.

As you say, I can't watch a video on NBC without seeing a commercial.

As if they're not making money hand over fist.

[AndyA]

4. I pay to use the internet every single month.

It is not free.

They are just looking for a way to make people pay MORE. It worked for the oil companies, the banks, and now the rest want their cut of the American pie as well, before there's nothing left.

[Selatius]

5. "Fuck Disney." - Megan Fox nt

[SpiralHawk]

6. They'll have to pry the mouse of of my cold dead hands.

Don't want no steenkin corporate-republicon paid internet.

Only bent-knee, mouth-breathing Republicon Homelanders would want the propaganda the corporate 'news' outlets catapult anyway. The 'news' corporations have forsaken America, Americans, and integrity -- and most everyone recognizes it.

[NJCher]

7. and especially the younger generation realizes it

The 'news' corporations have forsaken America, Americans, and integrity -- and most everyone recognizes it.

In the spring of this year, my university communications department sponsored a series of lectures and panels on the media. The students weren't very interested and we teachers had to take our classes to assure enough of the seats were filled. They had some prestigious names in news who had agreed to lecture and it would have been an embarrassment if the room was empty.

I took my class and laughed when one of my students asked the journalists what they had done for us lately. Even though he was a kid when the Iraq War started, he was coming of age when the lies told by the bush administration and facilitated by the news media were exposed.

By and large, this generation has its own media and it certainly doesn't include much, if anything, listed in the Bloomberg article.

Diller is too old to understand what's actually happened in this market. His scenario just isn't going to happen.


Cher