News Corp is set to launch an iPad only newspaper complete with its own editorial team. Despite grim reading for the company on their initial Paywall numbers for the Times Online (London), it seems they’re pushing ahead with other paid plans in the digital space.

OK, so I may be jumping the gun here by assuming that it’ll be paid, but you’d have thought that this would be the logical route given he direction being taken with other online titles – News of the World is the latest to be linked with the Paywall approach.  While I don’t think that paid for text content won’t work from a news perspective, you have to admire the pioneering spirit of News Corp.

What do I mean? Well, last night I wanted to watch live football (soccer) being shown on Sky (Fox) but my other half was watching another show. So, I installed the Sky (Fox) mobile TV app and watched it on my iPad. Clever stuff for now as it’s free until December if you already subscribe to Sky. But, if they make this an additional cost, will I take it up? Nope – and that’s football! So, there’s really no way I’m going to pay for news-based content even if it is nicely formatted for my iPad.

The problem is this – if it’s news, I can get it anywhere and in this country we are lucky to have the BBC, which provides us with a 24 hour-a-day stream of high quality news, so why would I pay for something I can get for free from another source. Not everyone has the broadcast rights for the Barclays Premier League, but last time I checked, anyone can report the news.