Wall Street Journal to introduce micropayment scheme

Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, said it would expand its payment system this autumn, with plans to charge non-subscribers small fees to access single articles and extend access to subscribers for premium niche markets, such as energy and commodities.

Thomson said News Corp was also developing bundled subscriptions for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal beyond the established print/online offer.

Premium WSJ subscribers would have access to Dow Jones newswire articles under the new system.

News Corp has yet to figure out a pricing scheme for the micropayments, but Thomson said accessing individual articles and premium subscriptions would come with a "rightfully high" price tag.

The Wall Street Journal is one of the few international publications to establish a successful online subscription model, with over one million paying the $100+ online fee every year.

Marketing campaigns for the WSJ have already begun in major US cities where local newspapers are struggling for survival, such as San Francisco and Detroit.

The announcement follows Murdoch's words that the era of free online content would soon be over.

Last week he hinted that readers of all News Corp's newspapers would see a similar WSJ.com pricing scheme before the end of the year.

A micropayment model could go hand in hand with Amazon's large format e-reader, the Kindle DX, which was released last week, some hailing the device as a saviour of the newspaper industry.

However, Murdoch has strongly suggested that News Corp was working on its own e-reader to rival the Kindle.