This week’s Media Show featured a fascinating discussion between Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and Sunday Times editor John Witherow on whether readers will pay for online content.

Will they, won’t they?
Rusbridger thinks they won’t; Witherow is gambling that they will. But both admitted they were sailing in uncharted waters.

Rusbridger was candid enough to say that if the paywalls worked, then the Guardian would have to rethink its view.

Fee at the point of need
And he also made a telling point about the proposed charges: the subscription fees, though trivial to UK readers, could be prohibitive to readers in poor countries – which would undermine the global reach of the UK media.

Someday my print won’t come
It wasn’t long, of course, before someone asked the obvious question: why not just dump print and all its associated costs – production, distribution, and disposal? Wouldn’t that be the best way to save money?

Well … er … yes. Both editors said that their current printing presses would be the last ones they’d buy. And both admitted that they could be redundant in a very short time – ten years or fewer.

CSM goes weekly
There’s a model out there: the  Christian Science Monitor, an internet pioneer among newspapers, printed its last daily edition on on March 27, 2009 after announcing losses of $18.9 million per year. The CSM now runs its news operation on the web, and prints once a week.

Could be the shape of things to come? Listen to the show and see what you think.