MySpace’s financials get worse as News Corp’s papers improve
News Corp’s fortunes have improved in traditional media but losses have got worse in its digital division, the company said today.
Lower advertising revenues at MySpace were one of the only downsides for a mainly positive market update from the Rupert Murdoch-controlled company, which owns News Ltd in Australia.
The company issued guidance saying that income for the three months ending in September was US$1.148bn, up from 1.062bn in the same quarter last year.
News Corp’s publishing interests jumped from $118m to $178m. The company said: “The newspaper businesses achieved an average 13% increase in advertising revenue with gains across all geographies, and benefited from lower newsprint and distribution costs in the U.K.”
The fact that their digital media group is listed under “other” in reporting should tell you all you need to know about their digital strategy.
Tough words from Carey – who is renowned as a straight shooter. Might have been different sentiment re FIM and Myspace if Rupert was on the call. Hard to know how seriously to take the ‘quarters’ comment.
AOL bought Bebo for $850m and reportedly sold it for $10m. Wonder how much News Corp will get for MySpace?
Read Bruce Guthrie’s book on his battle with Murdoch’s toadies and you understand why News will never make a fist of digital. It’s the culture stupid. About three years ago the Telegraph’s site was making big gains, so the guy who was running it — wait for it — gets squeezed out. Why? Because the dinosaurs at Holt Street saw a rival who might be noticed by Rupert.
That bloke is now at fairfax, where they make money out of the web.
As Guthrie says, its all about mates.
Very hard to understand what if any Digital straegy News has.
I am sure it must be a cultural and people problem.
I think their strategy is to ‘try and make some money’ or at the very least ‘not lose loads of money for 15 more years’
in that sense it’s rather revolutionary for the digital world.
Anonymous: Exactly the same thing happened at the Herald Sun.
+1 Post #4 …
News Ltd’s digital efforts were run by some good people a few years ago. Then when the orders came down to get serious about the web all those dedicated digital staff were pushed aside. In their place came the tide of eager young men sensing a “an opportunity to advance” in an area now attracting the eye of management. Trouble is that almost none of them knew anything about the web. They were “players” and “climbers” not web staff. Their ignorance in many areas was (and remains) absolutely astounding, only matched by their ability to spout plausible-sounding BS.
The fact that the executives and editors at the top of the tree generally remain bamboozled by the technology, myriad strategies and their own managers’ spin, nicely rounds out the picture.