MORE EXPENSIVE QUALITY NEWSPAPERS?

Yes, there is no other way if they want to survive.

Roy Greenslade was today in The Message, the media review of Radio 4, discussing the newspaper pricing issue.

He comments the proposition of Simon Kelner, editor of The Independent.

"He argues that newspapers should earn more of their revenue from the cover price and therefore rely a little less on advertising income.

He put his case well and most journalists would surely agree with his view that people should be prepared to pay more for a paper than they do a cup of coffee.

But the setting of cover prices isn't about journalistic work being undervalued.

It's about the brutal economics of the industry, indeed, any industry.

When Rupert Murdoch cut the prices of The Times and The Sun in 1993 we all discovered, to our dismay, that price does make a difference.

His two papers added sales at the expense of higher-priced rivals.

That was before the internet took hold, of course, before news was as freely available as it is now.

It also predated the widespread growth of giveaway newspapers, a phenomenon that I warned at the time would lead to people expecting something for nothing.

So it has come to pass.

More and more evening papers are giving away copies.

A new London giveaway is due next month.

Meanwhile, down go the figures for paid-for newspapers, as the latest ABC figures reveal. I'm with Kelner.

People should pay more for the product of our labours.

But should doesn't translate into must.

There is no going back.

There are moments when people will flock to buy papers, such as today because of yesterday's sensational news.

But these are odd days amid endless weeks when people will prefer to get their news AND analysis AND comment from the net.

People on their way to work will prefer to glance at headlines in free papers.

We cannot possibly persuade them to pay more when they so obviously wish to pay less, or nothing at all.

That's the drama.

It will be intriguing to see if Associated's response to the coming assault on the London Evening Standard bears out Kelner's belief that charging more really will work".