MATTHEW PINKNEY: I think if any mass circulation newspaper is going to do it, it will be the Herald Sun. The amount of research and thought that went into the creation of their pay wall model was enormous,... News Ltd has embraced the challenge and they're moving very aggressively into that space. So I wish them all the best. — Matthew Pinkney, Head of Content, AFL Media, 3 April, 2012

Matthew Pinkney should know. As digital editor of Melbourne's Herald Sun, he was one of the architects of its new online paywall.

But at the crucial moment he was poached by a wannabe rival in the online news business - none other than the Australian Football League.

Welcome to Media Watch. I'm Jonathan Holmes and this week a special program.

Over two years ago, Rupert Murdoch made this blunt prediction about his newspapers, and everybody else's...

RUPERT MURDOCH: I think we've been asleep. You know it costs us a lot of money to put together good newspapers and good content. And you know they're very happy to pay for it when they buy a newspaper. And I think when they read it elsewhere they're going to have to pay. — Sky News, 'The Interview' with David Speers, 7 November, 2009

It's taken a while. But two months ago, News Ltd's national broadsheet, The Australian, started charging for premium content online.

And the most widely-read daily paper in Australia, The Herald Sun, is about to start doing the same...

See the whole story unfold - in a whole lot more ways, with your Herald Sun digital pass. Unlock a world of news, sport and entertainment - online, on your phone, and on your iPad. — Herald Sun, Digital Pass Promo, 2012

At the moment, the Herald Sun's digital pass is free.

In a couple of months it'll cost just under three dollars a week - the first mass-market daily paper in the world, that we're aware of, to charge its readers for at least some of its online content.

SIMON PRISTEL: We wouldn't go into this unless we knew we'd be successful. JONATHAN HOLMES: You know you'll be successful, you mean it's not even a risk? SIMON PRISTEL: It's not even an option. If we don't enter this space then we can't afford the great journalism that we produce every day. SIMON PRISTEL: This is our multimedia sports desk over here, that is the website, mobile site, iPad, print operation...

The Herald Sun's newsroom stretches all the way round one floor of its tower block on Melbourne's Southbank.

They know who their markets are and they're obviously operating at different times as well... — Simon Pristel, Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

There are three more floors of editorial - altogether some hundreds of journalists.

The paper still makes good money for News Ltd - but like almost every other newspaper in the western world, its print sales are steadily falling - by more than 4% in the year to December...

Over here you've got the news side of the operation, with all the reporters up that end... — Simon Pristel, Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

Herald Sun editor Simon Pristel knows that the future careers of a lot of these people may depend on finding a way to make online news pay...

SIMON PRISTEL: the issue has never been about the audience, we've gained millions more customers over the last couple of years in reading our content on line. The issue is monetising those customers. We think we've got a model that works... — Simon Pristel, Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

Metcash, the grocery distributor, they've basically called time on milk bars... — News Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

At the twice-daily news conference, Pristel and his editorial team have always decided which stories will go where in the paper. Now they have to worry about what the tablet and mobile apps will have in the way of video and audio content...

A couple of videos, a video review of Grand Designs Australia and also a review of a thing called the Nike FuelBand — Web Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

and above all, what will be available online only to those who've registered for the Digital Pass. There's no doubt in anyone's mind what kind of stories readers are most likely to be willing to pay for. Stories about crime...

Basically the outline of how they want to combat it is to shut down nightclubs where drug dealing's prevalent... — Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

and stories about football. Australian rules football, of course.

Our main one's going to be on the Demons and the race claims against Mark Neeld ... There's leaks all over the place from inside headquarters so we just don't want to go too early on it. — Sports Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

SIMON PRISTEL: We've done a lot of research in this space and clearly football, crime and breaking news are the areas that people come to the Herald Sun website for. JONATHAN HOLMES: Football and crime being the two specialities of this city? SIMON PRISTEL: Sadly, sometimes.

It's footy when you want it, and the way you want it. Enjoy more footy stories, from more footy experts... — Digital Pass Promo, Herald Sun, 2012

But just as the Herald Sun is gearing up to put chunks of its formidable footy coverage behind a paywall, a competitor has appeared from an unexpected source. Not The Age or Fox Footy, or any of its traditional media rivals, but the Australian Football League itself.

MATTHEW PINKNEY: We will compete with the Herald Sun definitely and they're competing very hard and explicitly with us... — Matthew Pinkney, Head of Content, AFL Media, 3 April, 2012

The AFL's website is hosted by Telstra's Bigpond. Both are putting up big money - one to develop the website, the other to build a brand new content hub at AFL House in Etihad Stadium. It will be staffed by a team employed directly by AFL Media.

These are our video editing suites here... — Matthew Pinkney, Head of Content, AFL Media, 3 April, 2012

The team's leader will be the former digital editor of the Herald Sun, Matthew Pinkney...

MATTHEW PINKNEY: and all of the subs and reporters will be based here, all the TV screens will be showing live, on-line analytics... JONATHAN HOLMES: So how big is the team going to be here? It looks huge... MATTHEW PINKNEY: AFL Media is 105 employees and around about 40 journalists...

Forty journalists, plus brand new TV studios, and many millions of dollars invested - the AFL plans to be reporting on itself in a major way....

MATTHEW PINKNEY: so whether it's video content on various platforms such as tablet and iPhone and text, that's what the aim is, to create an independent credible news organisation which reports on AFL football. JONATHAN HOLMES: Now you said 'a news organisation that's going to report', I mean that's new isn't it? MATTHEW PINKNEY: It is, it's very new. The coverage of the game and positive coverage across all states is a very important thing for the AFL and we see that we are contributing to that. JONATHAN HOLMES: Well you say positive stories but surely how can you be a credible news source when you're reporting on yourself? The first negative story that comes along, well how are you going to deal with that? MATTHEW PINKNEY: Well we've dealt with a lot of negative stories so far ... We've reported Andrew Demetriou's salary cut, we've reported on the AFL's annual results, which were a loss, we've reported on Etihad Stadium's complaints that the AFL allowed people in the crowd to have footballs kicked at them by players. These are all things that normally the AFL would not be expected to report on and we've done that

SIMON PRISTEL: Some people liken it to the Gillard government setting up its own website and thinking people come to it for independent analysis, I wouldn't be so cynical but surely if you want independent analysis you're going to come to the Herald Sun. — Simon Pristel, Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

And season 2012 is under way for the Bulldogs and the Eagles, and Naitanui trade mark down to Scott Selwood, punts it long, Kennedy, two grabs, how's that for start? — Fox Footy, 1 April, 2012

Simon Pristel may act insouciant. But this is surely the worst moment for the Herald Sun to find itself facing another challenger to its dominance of Aussie rules coverage in Melbourne.

Especially a rival which has direct authority over the source of all the best stories, the clubs themselves...

JONATHAN HOLMES: Is it true that the AFL is telling the clubs that the good news stories, the human interest stories should be going to afl.com first and not to the newspapers? MATTHEW PINKNEY: Absolutely not and I'm glad you've asked that question so that's a myth that our competitors have put out there, and I understand why they do that, but we have never told the clubs that they're mandated to give us those stories. SIMON PRISTEL: They're trying to do that at the moment. There's no doubt about it, they're threatening penalties to clubs who don't cooperate with them but we, people talk to the Herald Sun because they want the mass market, they want their stories, their players talking to the Herald Sun, reaching 2.4 million people every week in terms of print and online. That's why they come to the Herald Sun. — Simon Pristel, Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

Well, threats or not, the real competition between the AFL and the Herald Sun won't be over footy gossip. It'll be over the so-called fantasy games, the AFL's Dream Team, and the Herald Sun's Super Coach.

DreamTeam was launched back in 2003. Fans can make up their dream team from every player in the league, as long they fit under a salary cap. Week by week, the real players' performances are factored in to give each fantasy team a score.

Then, three years later, the Herald Sun introduced Super Coach.

With more sophisticated scoring and better marketing, it soon overtook the Dream Team game. Already this season, it has three hundred and thirty thousand signed up players versus DreamTeam's two hundred and fifty thousand. More will sign up as the season progresses.

Though SuperCoach itself will still be free, the Herald Sun hopes that extra offerings behind the paywall will entice a good proportion of players to sign up for the Digital Pass...

For the first time ever, get live SuperCoach scores, plus access to the same stats the coaches get in the box. — Digital Pass Promo, Herald Sun, 2012

But News Ltd was reportedly furious when Matt Pinkney, the man who brought SuperCoach to the Herald Sun, and has intimate knowledge of how it plans to integrate the game with the paywall, was poached by the AFL...

SIMON PRISTEL: He's going to miss Super Coach, it's must be hard working for an organisation that has the loser in the fantasy football space, Super Coach is obviously a dominant game with over 400,000 players so we wish him well as we do everybody who leaves the company. — Simon Pristel, Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

MATTHEW PINKNEY: they didn't want me to go and I understand why they didn't want me to go... There's an enormous audience that plays both Dream Team and Super Coach and that audience can be monetised to an extent and both the AFL and the Herald Sun would be mad if they didn't attempt to monetise it, but there is room for both games. They've been going for several years now and collectively there's about 800,000 people who play those games. — Matthew Pinkney, Head of Content, AFL Media, 3 April, 2012

But do they want to be monetised? There's a lot of resistance online to the idea of paying for news about footy, or anything else - and especially, perhaps, to the idea of paying News Ltd.

I just have 2 questions 1) what are the HS smoking if they think people will pay +$150/year to read their stories online 2) where can I get some — Coryne, Big Footy, 12 March, 2012

This is a big gamble by the Murdochs. My bet is it will fail - you can't beat the people. — Catswhiskers, Big Footy, 12 March, 2012

Some twenty years ago, Pay TV was a gamble for Rupert Murdoch too - and it was sport that made it a global money-spinner. News Corporation has chosen the Herald Sun as its tabloid paywall guinea pig because Melbourne is a football mad city, and the Herald Sun is the footy paper.

But it's a characteristic of the digital age that the leviathans of the mainstream media can find agile new competitors springing up everywhere.

It's not inconceivable that in twenty years time, the giant 20th century media companies will be as dead as the dinosaurs. But if the alternative is to be teams of journos hired to report on their own employers, from sport to business and government, I for one would rather keep the Herald Sun.

Simon Pristel, of course, is upbeat....

SIMON PRISTEL: It's an exciting space, every media company in the world is going through this challenging time at the moment, but we're succeeding, we're in it for the long game and Rupert Murdoch has always been in it for the long game, which is why he's been so successful. — Simon Pristel, Editor, Herald Sun, 3 April, 2012

Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?

For fuller versions of those interviews, and a little more, visit our website. Next week we'll be back to our normal format. Until then, goodnight.