But Murdoch isn’t dismissing the problems. “People are getting used to getting everything on the net for nothing. That’s going to have to change somehow.” One change would the relationship with Google and others: “Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights? Not just Google (NSDQ: GOOG). I think if you’ve got a brand like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal you don’t have to do that.”

Speaking of the NYT, Murdoch called NYTimes.com a “a very, very good website, employing 300 people” with ad rates that are too low and to his thinking can’t be raised because the inventory is doubling every year.” Then there are the classifieds, “a gold river draining away that probably will be gone forever.”  How would the NYT do with a WSJ model that includes subscriptions?  “I think they’d do fairly well.” Of course, it’s “no trouble” for a financial paper “with the history of the Journal” to charge $60-100 a year for the website. WSJ.com has more than 1 million subs, he noted, and that’s not a “gold mine.”