The Financial Timesrecently announced it would charge users up to $140 annually for its premium online content.
The move by ft.comis the latest by a major media website that ends giveaways and seeks to generating much-needed revenues.
These companies are wagering that that some of the millions of users who view newspapers, magazines and other media over the Internet will now pay to visit those sites.
"The idea has always been to build a high level of traffic on the site, to build a large, loyal base with the FT then move to a revenue/price model," said Financial Timesfinance director Mr John Makinson.
But some analysts are doubtful that a population conditioned on getting something for free will start to open their pocketbooks.
"It sounds like a good idea," said Mr David Card, a senior analyst with Jupiter Media Metrix. "But pay-for online media is hardly a sure bet".
Giants such as the New York Times, the Financial Timesand media sites available through Yahoo! are trying to convert portions of their sites to for-pay services to bolster bottom lines, as advertising revenues decline for parent companies in a worldwide recession economy.
Adding to those money pressures is the failure of online advertising to generate a promised torrent of revenues.
In December, the New York Timeslaunched its "Electronic Edition," which puts an exact replica of the newspaper on users screens. The service costs approximately $6.70 per week and has so far signed up 2,600 subscribers, said a newspaper spokeswoman.
Salon.com, a popular left-leaning news and entertainment site, last year also began requiring visitors to pay for articles and says it now has 35,000 paying customers.
This is part of a growing movement by website operators to leave behind the Internet's strategy of forgoing profits in a Faustian-like bargain for snaring large audiences.
Profits, recently wrote New York TimesDigital CEO Martin Nisenholtz, was "one of the basic business lessons that a lot of the Internet folks forgot or never knew about - to their peril it turns out".
These new for-pay media sites are hoping to match the long-running success of wsj.com, the Wall Street Journal's website. Since its launch in April, 1996, the site has signed up 626,000 paying customers.
AFP