Rupert Murdoch demolishes pay wall at Wall Street Journal

[This post has been updated.]

The rolling boom you just heard was the sound of the pay wall at the Wall Street Journal being pushed over by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. He announced today to a group of shareholders in Australia that the online content of the Journal will henceforth (or very soon) be free.

This follows close on the heels of the decision by the New York Times to end its Times Select pay structure and the announcement probably heralds a major donneybrook between the two titles, seeking supremacy in the ad-driven online marketplace.

On WSJ.com, Mr. Murdoch said, "We are studying it and we expect to make [the site] free and, instead of having one million [subscribers], having at least 10 million-15 million in every corner of the earth." He said he believes that a free model, with its increased readership, will attract "large numbers" of big-spending advertisers.

[UPDATE: Mark Potts over at Recovering Journalist scolds the rest of the blogosphere for inflating and distorting Murchoch's words and somehow "jumping the gun" on the story based on his "supposed statement". In the process, Potts manages to slander all Australian journalists and take a roundhouse swipe at bloggers generally (save himself, of course). He obdurately refuses to understand that, based on Murdoch's considerable track record, when he makes a statement like the one quoted above that is holy writ in his organization.]