Rupert Murdoch's Times goes behind paywall

UK newspapers `The Times' and `The Sunday Times' today began charging readers for accessing its website, as the titles owner, media baron Rupert Murdoch fights to end the era of free online content.

Having successfully used paywall to his two financial dailies, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, Murdoch aims to repeat that success with The Times newspapers, although a similar gambit by The New York Times in 2005 to make readers pay for opinion and comment pieces came under heavy criticisms and the paper was forced to scrap it in 2007.

Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation, had said in March that he would begin charging readers for online versions of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers from June, in a move designed to spur other publishers to shift away from free news content on the internet. (See: Murdoch's News Corp to charge for Times online content from June) 

News Corp will be charging an introductory offer of £1 per day or £2 for a week for accessing the two newly designed sites, while subscribers to the print versions will get free access. The amount will give subscribers access to both sites.

There will also be a separate £9.99 a month charge for its iPad application.

The company had said that apart from The Times and The Sunday Times, two other British papers of News International, News Corp's UK subsidiary, the Sun and the News of the World, will also move to an online pay model soon.