Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : PCW - Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (105)	1/18/2001 5:00:23 PM
From: ms.smartest.person	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2248

Is Rupert Ditching Cyberspace for Outer Space? The monster mogul is further away than ever from a concerted online push. By Martyn Williams, Diane See Morrison, Kenneth Li and Jennifer Greenstein Do not believe Rupert Murdoch when he says that News Corp deliberately withheld serious engagement with the internet as part of a grand design. No self-respecting media mogul allows alternative global advertising and content channels like AOL and Yahoo to emerge unless their fingerprints are all over the crime scene. But more importantly don't believe Murdoch's more strident critics who claim he has been left behind by new technology and new economy. It's just that, as always, the dirty digger is going his own way. Recent reports have News Corp considering a possible acquisition of DirecTV, the six-and-a-half-year-old direct-to-home satellite broadcaster of Hughes Electronics. Ahead of the possible deal, the company has put a freeze on all acquisitions in an attempt to save money. Financial officers are even considering the disposal of some assets in order to fund the acquisition, which will see News Corp pay Hughes parent General Motors about $US40 billion, said the Financial Times in London. Offering more than 200 television channels, DirecTV has more than nine million customers in the US, making it the country's leading direct-to-home broadcaster. The company also offers a Spanish language service, DirecTV Para Todas, which offers Spanish language programming from the US, Latin America and Spain. In addition, Hughes operates DirecTV Latin America, which provides television via satellite to more than 1 million customers throughout Latin America. The DirecTV play puts News Corp's recent dramatic pull back from the internet into perspective. On that front, News Digital Media, the US-based digital subsidiary, is drastically scaling back its internet operations and is expected to lay off hundreds of staff in the next few weeks. Control and production of three internet sites -- Fox.com, FoxNews.com and FoxSports.com -- is being given back to their parent company's broadcast divisions, in an effort that will help cut costs, the company announced earlier this month. The latest moves are indicative of the company's tentative forays into new media. They follow a similar cost-cutting exercise at its UK arm. The layoffs come four months after News Digital Media, which was founded by Rupert's son James Murdoch, laid off some 13 per cent of its New York staff. The further cost-cutting comes as a blow to those who believed that internet sites with the backing of corporate parents would somehow be sheltered from the woes of independent dot-coms. But it was no great surprise. Across the world News Corp has struggled over how best to bring its vast media assets to the web, what to do with these assets, and how to manage them. It hasn't helped that it has had to do this under the sceptical gaze of its chairman. It may be that Rupert Murdoch only tolerated these separate and expensive forays into the internet at a time when the markets would have welcomed the IPO of a News Corp internet spin-off. Now that the IPO window is effectively closed, Murdoch has made it clear that he will not be spending any more than the bare minimum. The Media Retreat January 2, 2001: News Corp scales back involvement with WebMD January 5, 2001: News Corp's News Digital Media nixes three internet divisions, FoxNews.com, FoxSports.com and Fox.com, that employed 250 staff January 8, 2001: The New York Times cuts 17 per cent of its interactive workforce January 8, 2001: The Industry Standard lays off 7 per cent of its staff as dot-com advertisers dissolve January 14, 2001: NBC confirms it will cut 600 jobs due to weakening television advertising January 17, 2001: CNN cuts 10 per cent of its workforce including a third from its interactive division thestandard.com.au