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News Corp buys internet publisher for $650m
By Kate Mackenzie in London
Published: September 8 2005 12:56 | Last updated: September 8 2005 12:56
News Corp has bought IGN Entertainment, a website publisher, for $650m, as part of the US media conglomerate’s plan to spend up to $2bn on internet acquisitions.
It is News Corp’s third internet acquisition this year, after buying Scout Media, a sports web publisher, for an undisclosed sum, and last month paying $580m for Intermix, owner of the popular social networking website MySpace.com.
California-based IGN has 28m unique users - many of them young men - on its network of websites, which are focused on games, file dowonloads, sport, film and semi-naked women.
IGN will become part of News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media unit, which was set up in July, and will take News’ US website traffic to 70m unique monthly users.
Rupert Murdoch, chief executive, said the IGN acquisition meant News Corp had “gone a long way towards achieving” two key internet strategies. First, he said, News was now the fifth most-trafficked web presence in the world, and second, “we have furthered our strategy to leverage the unique competencies the company enjoys with its news, sports and entertainment assets to create a leading internet destination”.
The move is part of a renewed focus on the internet by Mr Murdoch, who had previously been sceptical about the medium.
Mr Murdoch has summoned his most senior executives for a summit on internet strategy this weekend at his Californian ranch - the second such meeting since February.
In April he used a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors to warn of complacency about the internet, and that “digital immigrants” such as himself would have to cater to a younger generation of “digital natives”.
In early August, Mr Murdoch said the group would spend up to $2bn on internet acquisitions, and was in advanced negotiations to buy a web search company, which was reported to be Blinkx, the multimedia search engine. Sources close to the company confirmed a week later that News was also considering buying IGN.
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