The Sunday Times is set to launch a standalone website and is considering charging readers for its content.

Plans have not been finalised, but executives at Sunday Times publisher News International are considering the charges to fall in line with the publicly stated desire of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of parent company News Corporation, for his newspapers around the world to follow the lead of the Wall Street Journal by charging for content.

Sunday Times content is currently published online alongside its daily sister title the Times under the umbrella Times Online website brand.

One source familiar with the situation said the new Sunday Times website could launch within three months. Another said it would be later in the year and that many crucial decisions about the site had not been finalised.

MediaGuardian.co.uk understands that a final decision on how to charge readers to look at content – whether via subscriptions or micropayments – has not been made.

But it is clear that News International will not make its "high-value customers" pay for the site. Readers who subscribe to the Sunday Times or have it delivered at home would not pay for online access.

Readers in London can pay the paper's full cover price, £2, and have the paper delivered to their home each week, or pre-pay and subscribe at a discount. Readers who subscribe or take home delivery also join the Sunday Times Culture+ club, which offers readers discounts and free offers.

During a conference call to discuss News Corporation's third quarter results last month, Murdoch said the company was "absolutely" looking at charging for people to read the Sun Online and Times Online.

"You can expect to see something in the next 12 months. We are planning to introduce a pay model across all our properties but we will test it first on some of our stronger properties," he added.

The Sunday Times editor, John Witherow, is understood to be a keen proponent of the site. "John thinks he is rewriting the business model of the web," one source said.

News International declined to comment.

A separate Sunday Times website would reverse publisher News International's longstanding policy of blending the content of the Sunday Times with the daily Times content under the Times Online banner.

Les Hinton, the former executive chairman of News International until he was replaced by James Murdoch in late 2007, and the Times Online digital director, Annelies Van Den Belt, carried out the strategy to merge the two papers' content into the single Times Online offering.

This strategy of publishing quality daily and Sunday newspaper content from sister titles under the same online brand is also followed by Guardian News & Media – which publishes MediaGuardian.co.uk – Telegraph Media Group and Independent News & Media.

Having a separate Sunday Times website containing such popular writers as Jeremy Clarkson and the motoring section could result in Times Online traffic falling dramatically – as would its advertising revenue.

Since the arrival of James Murdoch as chairman and chief executive News Corporation Europe and Asia, however, the company has noticeably pushed the subscription model.

In April, the Sunday Times sold an average of 1,221,683 copies each week, a year-on-year rise of 1.62%.

Last month Murdoch told reporters that the entire internet business model for newspapers was changing, as the current model was "malfunctioning".

Murdoch predicted that the classified advertising that was leaving print and migrating to the internet would probably never return and that the "traditional newspaper business model has to change, even though the present situation is greatly exaggerated by the current recession".

He forecast that it would take about two years for digital revenues from web content charging to make up for losses from the decline in print advertising.

"Two years, hopefully less, possibly more. We are looking at lots of things, models for charging, mobile readers. I don't believe in the [electronic reader] Kindle model but I do think it is very interesting that people are going to that and to their BlackBerries to view content. There are lots of ways we can make money from content over and above the advertising market."

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