Rupert Murdoch: "Internet Will Soon Be Over"

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave a strange response when asked
about plans for mainstream news websites to charge for content, declaring,
"The current days of the internet will soon be over."

He was making reference to the fact that corporate media websites cannot
continue to survive under their current failing business model.

The establishment media is dying and advertising revenue has plummeted as
people turn to blogs and the alternative media for their news in an
environment of corporate lies and spin.

This has forced sectors of the corporate media to charge the dwindling
number of loyal readers they have left for news content, a practice which is
set to become widespread according to Murdoch. This will only send more
people over to the alternative media as the old organs of de facto
state-controlled propaganda wither and die.

"Asked whether he envisaged fees at his British papers such as the Times,
the Sunday Times, the Sun and the News of the World, (Murdoch) replied: "We're
absolutely looking at that," reports the Guardian. "Taking questions on a
conference call with reporters and analysts, he said that moves could begin
"within the next 12 months," adding: "The current days of the internet will
soon be over."

Murdoch's newspapers and TV networks, which include Fox News and the Asian
Star Network, have seen profits plummet from $216m to just $7m year-on-year.
MySpace.com is also floundering despite a recent move to replace the company's
entire management staff.

It was all but over for the Boston Globe this week, following a threat to
close the 137-year-old publication after net losses of $85 million this year
alone. Only a last minute cost-cutting agreement on behalf of its owner, The
New York Times Company, and The Boston Newspaper Guild, saved the newspaper.

But it's not just establishment newspapers that are struggling to survive -
social networking websites like Twitter and corporate online video giant You
Tube are also deep in the red. Apparently, paying out millions in server
fees for half the population of the planet to watch clips of cute puppies
isn't a sustainable business model.

This is why You Tube is being forced to pursue lucrative partnerships with
giant production studios and broadcasters, at the expense of user generated
content which has been relegated to a sub-section of its website, taking the
"You" out of You Tube altogether. Content that may be deemed harmful to You
Tube's corporate agenda and its multi-million dollar partnership deals, like
The Alex Jones Channel, is being systematically erased from You Tube's
website under the pretext of flimsy copyright infringement claims.

The jig is up for the corporate media. If they continue to allow free access
to their content they will go out of business because there's not enough
advertising revenue coming in, whereas if they charge for content they will
lose a huge chunk of their audience and their influence in shaping the news
agenda will wane completely.

This is the price the corporate media has paid for lying, spinning and
obfuscating on behalf of the virulently corrupt power elite and expecting
the population to eat it up without question.

The corporate media monopoly has terminal cancer and they are losing their
power, which is why they are aggressively supporting moves to phase out the
old Internet altogether and replace it with "Internet 2," a highly regulated
and controlled electronic Berlin wall, where alternative voices will be
silenced and giant corporate propaganda organs will dominate once again.

This what Murdoch is really getting at when he assures us that, "The
Internet will soon be over" and it's down to us to stop that agenda from
being realized.