Johnston Press, a British publisher of local newspapers, has started charging for online access to some of its contents, a move that could be followed by others.

Johnston Press will charge £5 for providing online access to six of its titles for three months.

Three-month subscription will include titles such as the Whitby Gazette and Northumberland Gazette in Britain and the Southern Reporter in Scotland.

Speaking on the development, Paul Larkin, editor of Northumberland Gazette said, “It is exciting for us as journalists to be at the forefront of this venture.”

Johnston Press’ current move is being seen as an experiment. The company will gauge the success of the experiment before introducing the scheme across all of its 300 newspaper titles.

Newspapers are looking for new ways to boost revenues as advertising plunged due to recent global downturn and newspapers are losing readers to websites.