Rupert Murdoch’s minority bid along with the Chandler family for the Tribune Company is probably not going anywhere, the News Corp. chairman and CEO told the packed house at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit on Thursday. “Newspapers are increasingly vulnerable and we have to learn to look at them differently, so with that in mind, I don’t think the Tribune bid is going to happen,” he told Steve Adler, BusinessWeek’s editor. Holding forth on the state of newspapers, he said, “It scares me. Young readership is going down. The culture has changed. No one sits down and readers the paper with breakfast anymore. It’s a shame, because it gives you the opportunity to learn a great deal about the world. If you just read the news on My Yahoo, for example, you’ll miss a lot.” So with the Tribune bid likely to fall by the wayside, Adler asked about his interest in purchasing Dow Jones. “I’m not saying I’m cooling on it… but I don’t think they’ll sell it.”
Murdoch also discussed his thought process in buying MySpace in July 2005 for $580 million: “It was apparent at that time that while the economy was booming, TV and newspaper revenues were not moving up as they once would have in such an environment. That represented a permanent change in the media landscape, from an economic viewpoint. So we looked elsewhere. We looked at Intermix [MySpace’s partial owner at the time of News Corp.’s acquisition] and we saw that MySpace was growing very quickly. We also thought it would be nice fit with Fox Sports, which attracts a younger demographic. Looking at MySpace now, ad revenue is $25 million a month and growing. It’s a huge success.”
Adler mentioned that many people consider Facebook to have better safety features and that many schools even promote it as such. Murdoch noted recent moves to correct that imbalance, noting, “We have placed significant parental controls on MySpace, but the truth is, it’s difficult to tell who’s lying [about their age and other personal information]. You know, when Match.com started, there were news about a rape and a murder. It’s hard to say, but, particularly if you’re a young girl, you must be very careful about what kind of information you provide to someone you don’t know. I think people are learning that.”
On telephony and mobile content: “It’s important to note that there are twice as many — maybe three times — as many cell phones as personal computers being used. Particularly in places like China. The telephone is the next great entertainment platform. We’ve recently struck a deal with Cingular to allow MySpace available on it for $3 a month. All mobile companies are looking for content. However, I don’t believe that people will want to watch movies on their phones. Despite Steve Jobs’ new iPhone, I think the trend for movies is for bigger screens and HD.”
Murdoch also said that within the next five years, he expects the internet to supply 10 percent – at a minimum – of News Corp.’s revenues.
New biz net: Murdoch said next week will bring more details about the forthcoming Fox Business News cable channel, which is billed as a direct challenger to CNBC. “The channel will be on this fall. We don’t want to announce to many programming details, because CNBC will simply copy them. I will say that we want to be more viewer-friendly.”
He rounded out his conversation with Adler by clarifying his opinion of Hillary Clinton (“She’s very impressive on foreign policy … she’d be much more subtle than her husband in that area. She uses her words well, she’s very calculating.”) and the movie Borat, saying he’s seen it three times. “We had a screening, laughed a lot, went out to dinner, laughed more, then woke up in the more and wondered what the hell. Anyway, I don’t think it destroyed American culture and yes, there’s a sequel in the works.”
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