The New York Times Gets a British Accent
America's flagship newspaper reaches across the pond for a chief executive who can engineer its turnaround. Will the former head of the BBC be able to make the Timesturn a profit?
America's flagship newspaper reaches across the pond for a chief executive who can engineer its turnaround. Will the former head of the BBC be able to make the Timesturn a profit?
Back in July 2005, the deal seemed so promising. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought MySpace parent Intermix Media for $580 million. The social media pioneer was, by some measures, the fifth most-visited website in the U.S. This week, MySpace was sold for a fraction of that amount.
Apple is broadening the content subscription-billing service it started earlier the month with News Corp.'s The Daily electronic newspaper to other magazines, newspapers, video providers and other content sources, as the company looks to further benefit from the growing contingent of people getting their news on portable devices.
Facebook has won the most customer loyalty, by far, out of all social media sites, according to the latest Brand Keys's Customer Loyalty Index. The network easily outperformed News Corp.'s MySpace, Twitter and others.
Super Bowl XLV, which aired on Fox on Sunday, attracted 111 million viewers, making it the most-watched television program of all time, Nielsen said Monday.
News Corp. has launched The Daily, a newspaper specifically designed for the Apple iPad and other tablet computers. The e-paper's premier edition has attracted kudos for visuals, but mixed reviews on content. The burning question: Will it attract paying readers?
News Corp. more than doubled its earnings for the fiscal second quarter, the company announced Wednesday. Part of the gain comes from a settlement charge a year earlier, which dampened year-ago earnings on a one-time basis. The company also is considering selling MySpace.
Hulu CEO Jason Kilar threatened to leave the video site last fall over a dispute about its subscription pricing, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Wondering how much it will cost to read stories on The New York Times's website once the newspaper sets up its long-anticipated pay wall? While a final price hasn't been set yet, unidentified sources told Bloomberg News that it'll come to less than $20 per month.
Social networking pioneer MySpace could find itself going solo again soon. Its owner, News Corp, is considering a potential sale or spin-off of the social network as it looks for a way to stem the tens of millions of dollars in losses it's taking from the unit, according to a Bloomberg report.
After months of delays, the deal is done: An investment group called Filmyard Holdings is the proud new owner of the storied Miramax Films. The sale was announced back in June, but concerns about bank financing pushed the closing date back until now.
News Corp. snapped up a 90% stake in educational software and services company Wireless Generation for $360 million in cash, giving it an entry into the educational industry.
In the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" department, MySpace launched a feature that lets users import interests from their Facebook profiles to give MySpace pages a broader stream of entertainment content.
Hulu lowered the price of its newly launched Hulu Plus subscription service by $2 to $7.99 Wednesday, just days after the online streaming video service saw its rank decline on a closely watched Internet ranking service for the month of October.



