ABC rejects web content charging

© iStockphoto.com/Alexey Khlobystov

Poll

Should we be charged for reading online news content?

This poll ended on 15 October 2010.

Yes, it's the same as buying a newspaper.

5%

No, the net should be free and I shouldn't have to pay for information.

91%

Undecided.

2%

This is not a scientific poll. The results reflect only the opinions of those who chose to participate.

THE ABC's internet content will remain free, chief executive Mark Scott has promised, at the same time scoffing at plans by media mogul Rupert Murdoch to charge for online material.

Delivering the annual A.N. Smith Memorial Lecture in Journalism at the University of Melbourne on Wednesday, Mr Scott said the call by Mr Murdoch for News Limited to charge for online content in the future was doomed to failure.

"When you have been so powerful and dominant for so long, it is hard to believe that empire is slipping away," he said.

Mr Murdoch's plan was "a classic play of old empire, of empire in decline - believing that because you once controlled the world you can continue to do so".

Technology had left traditional media companies lagging, Mr Scott argued.

"It is hard to see, in an English-speaking environment anyway, the (traditional media) companies that have cut a path to genuine transformation for the future," he said.

Most online content offered by private media organisations, and all offered by the ABC, would be free in the future, Mr Scott said.

"Much of the content, most of it, nearly all of it when you look at the totality of the web will be free," he said.

"It will certainly be free online at the ABC.

"The public pays for the ABC to deliver distinctive, quality content to them - and if it is content we are creating and packaging for them now, they are entitled to view that content free of charge."