As newspapers and magazines look to boost revenues in the recession, nearly 70 per cent will continue or plan to charge for their online content.
The prediction by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) marks an extraordinary U-turn by the industry; just two years ago, 53 per cent of the AOP's members said they had "no plans to charge for content".
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The AOP survey found that those who plan to charge were looking at special reports and downloadable applications. Others saw charging for their archives and specific mobile content as potential opportunities.
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Several papers have been toying with introducing a micropayments system, where readers pay a couple of pence tro read each article.
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Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, said it could work for specialist markets but not for all news because "there are enough free sources".
Those polled said the biggest online opportunities this year were in mobile internet operations, with 86 per cent saying they either already provided or would launch mobile sites.
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