In his most recent post, our General Manager of Global Research, Bill Tancer looked at the importance of Google to the Wall Street Journal following Rupert Murdoch’s recent comments in a Sky News interview (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/11/09/news-corp-considers-a-google-ban/?mod=rss_WSJBlog) saying he would consider blocking Google from indexing the News Ltd news websites.

To follow Bill’s analysis of the WSJ, here’s a local review of Google’s importance to the News Ltd News titles in Australia. I have aggregated Google Australia (google.com.au), Google (google.com) and Google News Australia (news.google.com.au) to provide a comparative view.

Below is the same chart highlighting upstream traffic to Google (Custom Category) from News Ltd News Titles (Custom Category).

During October 2009, the three websites made up 23.5% of the News Ltd News Titles (Custom category) upstream traffic and sat in positions 1 (Google Australia), 6 (Google)and 10 (Google News Australia).

While newspapers around the globe are facing a similar dilemma experiencing declining revenues – will a micro payment / subscription model turn their fortunes around? Or is Mark Scott, the Managing Director of the ABC correct in suggesting that the plan is a classic play of an old empire in decline?

I’d be interested in your thoughts.

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