• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, August 5, 2009

L ooking to upend the increasingly troubled model of free online content, News Corp. plans to charge for access to its collection of news sites, including ones that are affiliated with the Fox News Channel, New York Post and Times of London. The company has had success attracting paying customers to its Wall Street Journal site and is looking to use that as a template.

"The traditional business model (for publishing) has to change rapidly," CEO Rupert Murdoch said Wednesday.

Murdoch's view on the issue has undergone a 180-degree turn. Before purchasing The Wall Street Journal, Murdoch said he planned to open the gates and make its site free.

Murdoch offered few specifics about the shift to a widespread pay model at News Corp., saying only that he hoped it would begin during the next year.

"Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting," he said.

News Corp. operates over 100 newspapers and a slew of news sites linked with its TV brands, including FoxNews.com. Murdoch said the WSJ site is profitable.

Referencing the migration of content to mobile and other distribution avenues, Murdoch said, "we intend to be platform neutral but never free."

Murdoch spoke about the change in strategy on a call to discuss News Corp.'s performance in the April-June quarter. Revenues fell 12% to $7.7 billion, while the company reported a loss of $203 million after a $1.1 billion profit in the quarter a year ago.

In the TV segment, a difficult ad environment hurt revenues at both the Fox network and the company's local stations. Ad dollars for the stations were down 27%, partly due to lower spending by movie studios.

Offering no details, Murdoch said News Corp. has been satisfied with its upfront sales so far, but plans to hold back a higher level of inventory than normal for the scatter market -- something that both ABC and NBC have also said they would do.

Still, News Corp.'s incoming COO, Chase Carey, said the traditional ad-supported business model for broadcast TV "doesn't work" and is in need of reinvention. He did not offer specifics, but signaled that a reevaluation would be a focus for him.

News Corp. also said that the Big Ten Network is profitable in just its second year, thanks to lucrative affiliate deals. The Fox Business Network is now in nearly 50 million homes after its 2007 launch.