Research: 9 Out of 10 Consumers Won’t Pay For Online News

By GottaLaff

Paddy and I have a kazillion sources that we use regularly to bring you posts. If they start charging, we stop reading. Subscribing to multiple news outlets would break us. I'm guessing that the bigger blogs would take over the Blogosphere, and we'd have to rely on their quotes, or form a group of bloggers who would pool their money to pay for access.

So this is welcome news:

The evidence is stacking up against the confidence of publishers like Rupert Murdoch who expect their readers to start paying for news online.

Anything that messes with Murdoch's confidence works for me.

A survey of 2,000 people by Lightspeed Research (via Mediaweek) found that…

—91 percent of respondents “would never pay” for online news
—Only five percent said they would be interested in buying single news articles
—just four percent would consider a longer-term subscription. [...]

Age plays a role here…
—86 percent of the 16-24 age range put themselves in the “never” category
— that number rises to 96 percent for the 45-65 age range.

So hurry up and age, everyone.

However (there's that H word again):

News Corp (NYSE: NWS) claims to have research from its Australian division showing people will happily pay.

And we all know how reliable News Corp is.