• The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, September 26, 2007 10:46 AM

The shift by The New York Times to abandon its subscription Web site may now influence a broad change across the entire newspaper industry. The Times officially walked away from its subscription model last week, deciding it could make more money by making its content free online -- including its vast digital archive that users have paid to access in the past.

As that decision was made, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch mused about doing the same with The Wall Street Journal. Though he has yet to close the purchase of the well-known financial broadsheet, moving entirely to free content online already "looks like the way we are going," he told analysts.

This has the newspaper industry watching closely. Though major papers like the Los Angeles Times have been scrapping their subscription models, these latest moves are seen as the potential death-knell for the online subscription model. Internet advertising has become too powerful and too lucrative to block non-subscribers from your site, executives across the newspaper industry have told analysts and investors.

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