Speaking of Fox News, did you all see this...? News Corp. Closes Online Division
By Seth Sutel
AP Business Writer
Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001; 8:17 p.m. EST
NEW YORK –– News Corp., the media empire controlled by Rupert
Murdoch, is shutting down its online division and eliminating more than
200 jobs in an effort to conserve badly needed cash.
The company said in a statement released late Thursday that it would
transfer the production of three major Web sites back to the networks
they are associated with – Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Sports
Television Group, and Fox News Channel.
In so doing, about half of the 450 jobs in the digital division, News
Digital
Media, will be lost through attrition and layoffs over the next six months,
according to company spokesman Andrew Butcher. The remaining jobs
will be moved back to the networks.
Butcher said the move would save the company "tens of millions" of
dollars, but he declined to be more specific.
News Digital Media was formed in 1997 with the ambitious goal of
providing fresh editorial content for the online components of News
Corp.'s broadcast outlets, FoxNews.com, FoxSports.com and
Fox.com.
Until 1999 the division had been headed by James Murdoch, the
27-year-old son of News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch. James, who
now heads the company's Asian satellite operations, is also a board
member along with his 29-year-old brother Lachlan.
The elder Murdoch has recently expressed pessimism about Internet
business models that rely on getting revenues from online advertising.
The cost-cutting move comes just as News Corp. needs to shore up its
finances. Later this month it could be hit with a bill of up to $2 billion to
buy out the half-interest in Fox Family Worldwide owned by children's
programming mogul Haim Saban, creator of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles."
News Corp. has also been gearing up to float shares in its large satellite
TV broadcasting subsidiary, Sky Global Networks. At the same time,
News Corp. is also keenly interested in acquiring DirecTV, a leading
U.S.
satellite broadcaster owned by General Motors Corp.'s Hughes
Electronics unit.
DirecTV would fill in a major gap in Murdoch's global satellite business,
which already covers much of Europe, Asia and Latin America. Analysts
estimate DirecTV could be worth about $40 billion.
In addition to its television properties, News Corp. also has a major
movie studio, 20th Century Fox, the HarperCollins book publisher as
well
as many newspapers including The Sun in Britain and the New York
Post
in the United States.
© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
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