Whether that was the News Corporation chairman's plan or not, Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Tony Blair at Number 10 have shown that revealing self-imposed deadlines in public can make you a hostage to fortune and is invariably counterproductive.
Hence, it was no surprise when Murdoch admitted last week he "can't promise" the deadline will be met, although he wasn't forthcoming about the reasons why. My understanding is that News International is trying to set up an online pay platform to bring together content from third-party providers in addition to material from The Sun, News of the World, The Times and The Sunday Times.
The service will mirror online what Sky, in which News Corp is the biggest shareholder, does on its TV electronic programme guide. The EPG provides access to Sky TV, as well as channels from other TV firms. TV media owners pay Sky for a listing on it, encryption and regionalisation. Sky pays the media owner a fee for every subscriber signed up and a share of revenue if it sells the advertising.
Users would buy News International content and add on other packages as desired. So you might buy The Times and The Sunday Times, as well as The Daily Telegraph, which News International has been in discussions with. The system works because it avoids multiple pay platforms, which dilute the user-friendliness of the purchasing process and don't exploit economies of scale.
The downside for third-party media owners is that News International owns the customer relationship and will presumably be able to market further services to the user base, which is no doubt complicating negotiations and technical integration.
Other media consortia are looking at similar group charging initiatives, so no wonder it is taking more than a few months to put together. My sense is that News International and its competitors' online charging efforts will be one of the biggest rolling media stories of 2010 - but the offers won't be trivial to put in place.