The Wall Street Journal Setting Online Content FreeThe Wall Street Journal Setting Online Content Free

Rupert Murdoch wants to make The Wall Street Journal Online free.

During an interview with The Australian this week, Murdoch said he plans to do away with subscription fees on the WSJ Web site to attract more subscribers.

He told the News Corp. paper that subscription growth would drive up advertising revenue and help replace losses from dwindling subscriptions in the United States. Murdoch told The Australian that the elimination of subscription fees for online news could increase readership from about 1 million to about 20 million.

The media mogul whose News Corp. conglomerate also owns 20th Century Fox, Fox Broadcasting, and MySpace, told the paper that "the whole culture of the Internet is to make it free," and that young people turn to the Web for news during the week.

Murdoch is expected to take control of The Wall Street Journal next month when News Corp.'s offer to buy Dow Jones is expected to go through.

He said that the Web site would broaden its international coverage, beginning with Europe. He hopes the changes will help offset losses from an advertising slump in the United States. American sources provide about 23% of News Corp.'s advertising revenue.

As spread word of Murdoch's plans to make online subscriptions free, The Wall Street Journal itself announced Wednesday that readers can now submit articles to the news and content sharing site, Digg.

That means Digg users can click on The Wall Street Journal Online's content for free. Digg counts about 25 million visitors a month.

"The Wall Street Journal Online provides in-depth reporting, commentary, and analysis on the most important economic and political issues of the day, and Digg users are enthusiastic consumers of news and information," Daniel Bernard, general manager of The Wall Street Journal Online, said in a prepared statement. "We're excited to partner with Digg to offer our users a way to share Journal articles directly from our site, as well as expose new audiences to our content on Digg."