Ad sales down, News Corp reports loss

awesometbn

awesometbn

More whining
Oct 6, 2008
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Some interesting comments about MySpace advertising. And these disappointing quarterly results are being announced right around the same time that Murdoch is telling people that he wants to start charging everyone for getting access to his news websites and putting a premium price on content. Sounds like an idiot move to start asking for a monthly fee or start putting a price on each news article. If he does this, plenty of people will run away to other news outlets that are free because it has become a habit to think of news as something that is easy to get from TV and radio and streaming websites and hundreds of news aggregators. Good luck with that.

Source: hxxp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=avIR4MBET2Ck

News Corp., owner of the Fox broadcast network and the Wall Street Journal, reported a fourth-quarter loss of $203 million on writedowns at its Internet unit and plunging advertising revenue.

The loss of 8 cents a share compared with net income of $1.13 billion, or 43 cents, a year earlier, the New York-based company said today in a statement. Excluding some charges, profit was 19 cents a share, compared with the 18-cent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

The worst recession since World War II battered ad sales at News Corp.’s local TV stations, social-networking Web site MySpace and newspapers, which include the New York Post and the Sunday Times. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch hired new managers and cut jobs to help offset the advertising slump.

“Given that you have traffic not growing anymore at MySpace, there’s concern that a big chunk of revenue is going to come out of there,” Michael Morris, a New York-based analyst with UBS AG, said before results were released.

Impairment charges that were primarily related to Fox Interactive Media, which includes MySpace, reduced earnings by 17 cents a share. Advertising sales fell at MySpace, and the company had increased costs to introduce MySpace Music.
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awesometbn said:
If he does this, plenty of people will run away to other news outlets that are free because it has become a habit to think of news as something that is easy to get from TV and radio and streaming websites and hundreds of news aggregators.
Click to expand...

There will be no news to aggregate if Murdoch closes shop.
 
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