News Corporation - FishbowlNY

News Corp. Revenue Rises Thanks to Fox News, Movies

Chris O'Shea — Thu, 09 May 2013 09:28:13 +0000

News Corporation just reported its third quarter earnings, and once again, things are looking good for the media behemoth. Well, at least parts of it. For News Corp.’s fiscal third quarter revenue jumped 14 percent to $2.85 billion, but it would have been higher if not for a $45 million loss posted by the company’s publishing brands.

In the end, News Corp. said that about 55 percent of its revenue growth is from entities such as Fox News, 20th Century Fox and FX.

That will make things all the more interesting when the big split happens. The division is expected to take place at the end of June, with 21st Century Fox controlling the movie studio and TV properties and News Corp. controlling The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and more.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Rupert Murdoch to Get $28 Million When News Corp. Splits

Chris O'Shea — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:45:12 +0000

Rupert Murdoch is going to become an even richer man than he already he is when News Corp. finally splits. According to Bloomberg, Murdoch will be paid $28 million in total compensation when 21st Century Fox and New News Corp. begin their reign.

To make matters even sweeter for Murdoch, the payment is better than last year’s, when he raked in $24 million. The man is doing well. So what’s on Murdoch’s mind lately? Oh, the usual. Bashing The New York Times:

NYT op-Ed today argues. US inhospitality to teenage migrants led to Boston terror attack.Give us a break!And they charge $2.00!

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) April 24, 2013

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Disney Tops Media Company Revenue List

Chris O'Shea — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:28:41 +0000

Disney is the top dog (or mouse, if you want to be dumb/cute about things). SNL Kagan released its annual list which ranks media companies by analyzing revenue and profitability, and The Walt Disney Company takes the number one spot. According to Mediapost, the company had $42.3 billion in revenue last year. Not bad, considering the people who work at Disney thought Taylor Kitsch was a great actor.

Here’s the top five media companies, ranked by 2012 revenue:

1) Disney ($42.3 billion)
2) News Corp. ($33.7 billion)
3) Omnicom Group ($14.2)
4) CBS ($14.1)
5) Viacom ($13.9)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

News Corp. Sells Videogame/Entertainment Sites for Less Than $100 Million

Chris O'Shea — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:30:43 +0000

In 2005, News Corporation bought IGN Entertainment — which operates IGN.com and Askmen.com, among others — for $650 million. Today, after months of trying to fetch a good bid for the sites, News Corp. settled for the best offer it could get. According to Bloomberg News, News Corp. sold IGN to Ziff Davis Inc. for less than $100 million. That has got to hurt.

For Ziff Davis (which already owns sites like PCMag.com and Geek.com) the deal gives it a chance to expand the company’s influence among males, its main target audience.

“IGN and AskMen are tremendous best-in-class brands that we are proud to have as part of our digital media portfolio,” said Vivek Shah, CEO of Ziff Davis, in a statement.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

News Corporation Names Two Execs to Publishing Arm

Chris O'Shea — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 09:00:41 +0000

News Corporation has added Anoushka Healy and William Lewis to its publishing arm that has been nicknamed “PubCo.” Healy has been named chief strategy officer. She was most recently group managing editor of The Times and Sunday Times.

Lewis has been tapped as chief creative officer for PubCo. He is an executive member of News Corp.’s Management and Standards Committee, and he will retain that role.

“Will and Anoushka will be at the very heart of the new company, expanding our digital and global reach and building new businesses,” said Robert Thomson, CEO of PubCo, in a statement. “Anoushka is a fully certified organizational genius and master of motivation. Will has an innate understanding of audiences and how their needs are changing. He is as diligent as he is digital.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Publishing Arm of News Corp. Being Called ‘PubCo’

Chris O'Shea — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 09:20:24 +0000

Every new(ish) company needs a handy nickname, right? Well, not really. But they happen anyway. We now know that the publishing arm of News Corporation, which is in the process of being split from the company’s entertainment brands, has — at least internally — a new way to refer to itself. Ladies and gentlemen, meet “PubCo.”

Ashley Huston, most recently the head of communications for Dow Jones Company and The Wall Street Journal, sent out a memo announcing her new role as “communications/PR for the new News Corporation (aka PubCo).”

Like it or not, PubCo it is. Below is Huston’s full memo.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Media Stocks Outperform Other Industries in 2012

Chris O'Shea — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:30:43 +0000

We know that you come to FishbowlNY for investing advice, so please heed our words for next year: Buy low, sell high and never, ever, login to your Scottrade account after three scotches. With those 2013 pearls of wisdom aside, let’s take a look at how media stocks did this year.

MediaPost reports that the media industry did quite well. The Dow Jones U.S. Broadcasting and Entertainment Index was up 40 percent compared to last year, as a number of media companies saw gains. By comparison, the Dow Jones Industry Index was up only 6.7 percent.

Comcast, Time Warner and News Corp. all saw improvements over 2011, with jumps of 54, 52 and 47 percent, respectively.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

News Corp. Buys Cleveland Sports Channel for $230 Million

Chris O'Shea — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:18:16 +0000

We first heard about News Corp. purchasing SportsTime Ohio early this month, and now the deal is officially done. According to Reuters, News Corp. bought the regional sports network for about $230 million.

The network broadcasts Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns games, as well as local college and high school sports.

As part of a separate deal, News Corp. is going to pay the Indians $40 million per season for the next 10 seasons for the rights to broadcast their games. That’s a lot of money for a mediocre team. Sorry Clevelanders!

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

News Corp. Confirms Purchase of YES Network Stake

Chris O'Shea — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 11:56:16 +0000

News Corporation just made the rumor that it was purchasing a stake in YES Network a fact. According to a press release from the company, the deal for News Corp. to acquire a 49 percent stake in YES will close by the end of the year.

As part of the deal (numbers were not disclosed) Yankee Global Enterprises, YES’s parent, Goldman Sachs, and others reduce their stake. After three years, News Corp. has the green light to purchase up to 80 percent of the network. Also, buried in the same release, YES Network now owns the broadcast rights to Yankees games through 2042.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to enhance News Corporation’s industry-leading portfolio of sports properties, while also strategically re-entering the New York market,” said James Murdoch, News Corp.’s deputy COO, in a statement. “The YES Network represents the gold standard for regional sports networks and is a pioneer in sports media.”

“FOX wrote the book on regional sports networks, and we are excited to partner with FOX and take advantage of this opportunity to build upon our leadership position,” added Tracy Dolgin, YES Network’s president and CEO.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

News Corp. to Purchase Stake in YES Network

Chris O'Shea — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:43:28 +0000

News Corporation and the Yankees. Strange bedfellows? Perhaps, but according to The New York Times, they’re both about to snuggle up. News Corp. is said to be close to purchasing a stake in YES Network, which broadcasts the Bronx Bombers and Brooklyn Nets games.

Negotiations are still underway, but according to the Times, News Corp. would buy a stake in YES from the Yankees’ equity partners, and Yankees Global Enterprises — YES’ parent — would retain its 34 percent stake. No word on what the price tag will be, but YES has been valued at about $3 billion.

We were going to offer a funny remark about this deal, but we cannot top this comment on the Times’ report, from Tom S:

“No! This is terrible news, now we have to listen to A-Rod’s voicemail???”

Perfection.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Media Companies Donate to Hurricane Sandy Relief Efforts

Chris O'Shea — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:25:04 +0000

Repeat after us: Giant companies aren’t always bad. Especially when they use some of their overflowing money stash’s for the greater good. News Corporation, Viacom, The Walt Disney Company and NBC Universal are doing their part, as they’ve all pledged donations to Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

Rupert Murdoch got things going by pledging one million from News Corporation. “Newscorp giving $1million to help families in NY and NJ badly hurt by Sandy,” Murdoch tweeted. “Hope other companies will do same.”

Viacom is donating $1 million, half to the Mayor’s Fund for NYC and half to local organizations that are helping Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester County get back on their feet. Disney is also splitting its $2 million donation; half will go to the Red Cross and the other million to assorted charities.

NBC Universal is taking a slightly different route, as it plans to air a fundraising special Friday night at 8 p.m. Matt Lauer will host the program, which will feature performances by Jon Bon Jovi, Christina Aguilera, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Sting.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

David Ho on The Daily and Creating WSJ‘s iPad App

Mona Zhang — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:46:05 +0000

“Technology is easy. Journalism is hard,” says the Wall Street Journal‘s mobile and tablets editor David Ho. The Journal was one of the first major newspapers to develop an iPad app, the process of which was the toughest professional challenge Ho has undertaken. “It was more than a news-journalism-tech challenge. It felt like some crazy endurance race,” he said.

And, having gone through that process of creating a news app from scratch, Ho said he empathizes with the pressure his peers at News Corp.’s The Daily likely face.

“I think everyone involved in tablet and mobile news watches The Daily. It’s this bold experiment: a brand new news organization created from scratch. How often do you see that these days? The Daily pioneered a lot of ways to deliver news on tablets,” Ho said in Mediabistro’s latest So What Do You Do? interview.

“It does look like The Daily is trying to make their production process easier,” he continued. “They dropped their landscape view not long ago. That I get. Supporting two tablet rotations all the time is a lot of work. It’s tough to put out a tablet issue every day.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

News Corp. Falls Out of Top 25 Media Earners List

Chris O'Shea — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:00:59 +0000

According to a new study from SNL Kagan, News Corporation’s bottom line dropped so far in the second quarter that it’s no longer one of the top 25 media company earners. The company reported a net loss of $1.5 billion during 2Q, compared with a $683 million profit during 2Q of 2011.

In News Corp.’s number two spot is Reuters, with $935 million net profits. Disney once again topped all media companies, pulling in $2 billion.

The full list is available here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Clean-Living James Murdoch to Run Fox Networks Group

Chris O'Shea — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 15:00:28 +0000

James Murdoch hasn’t overseen a company that illegally hacked people’s phones for several months now, so of course he is getting a promotion. This is America, and that’s how we do things. Or at least that’s how the Murdoch’s do things. Get involved in a scandal? Get rewarded with a bigger job!

The Wall Street Journal reports that Murdoch — currently deputy chief operating officer of News Corp. — will oversee Fox Networks Group, which includes a slew of channels, including Fox, FX, and National Geographic. The only catch? Murdoch isn’t getting control of Fox News or Fox Business which will still be overseen by Roger Ailes.

We’re being serious when we say we can’t wait to see what Murdoch does with this new role.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

News Corp. Wisely Adds Board Member with Ties to Phone Hacking

Chris O'Shea — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 09:25:07 +0000

News Corporation, in what can only be described as a brilliant move, has added former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to its board. What makes this such a wise choice? Uribe’s close allies were once accused of illegal wiretapping. A round of applause, please, for News Corp.

According to Bloomberg News, Uribe’s former chief of staff, Bernardo Moreno, was arrested on phone hacking charges last year and Uribe’s ex head of intelligence, Maria del Pilar Hurtado, escaped to Panama (with the help of Uribe) to avoid similar charges.

Adam Isacson, an expert on Colombia in the Washington Office on Latin America, told Bloomberg, “When people talk about the dark side of Uribe, this is one of the main scandals that sullied his reputation.”

Notice Isacson said “one of the main scandals,” as in Uribe has been involved in more unethical situations than just the wiretapping. Brovo News Corp!

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.