MUMBAI: n a bid to generate more revenue streams, The Wall Street Journal is planning to charge for access to the newspaper on mobile devices such as the Blackberry and iPhone.

he announcement was made by News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York. While expressing confidence towards the improvement of the ad market, Murdoch also predicted that newspapers on print would become extinct within the next 20-30 years.

It is pertinent to note here that this move to charge the mobile readers comes at a time when the newspaper industry in the US is facing a crisis of survival with ad revenues and circulation falling or stagnating.

Murdoch noted that the plan to charge for access to the newspaper on mobile devices will kick into action "in a month or two".

Under the plan, people who do not subscribe to the WSJ will pay $2 a week for mobile access while subscribers will pay $1 per week. Subscribers to both the print and online version of the paper will get mobile access for free.

At the same conference Murdoch also stated that the company was thinking in terms of subscriptions and pay-per-view for online video site, Hulu.