OLD Media Moves

Murdoch: WSJ, Fox Business doing better than expected

July 2, 2009

Dan Freed of TheStreet.com talked recently with News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch about the media business, including some of his business news properties.

Here is an excerpt:

How’s advertising at The Wall Street Journal?

Marginally better than at other newspapers, but not great. Certainly we have reduced our costs at The Journal I think fully as much as we’ve declined in national advertising.

Do you think micropayments are a workable model for selling news online?

I don’t think people will pay for it. We’re still thinking our way through this and there will be micropayments as part of it, but I’m thinking much more along the lines of subscriptions like The Wall Street Journal does.

Are you annoyed you don’t own CNBC?

No.

Why not?

Because we’re going to enjoy the competition. We have to get wider distribution and that takes time. We are further ahead with Fox Business than we were at this stage with Fox News, and Fox News today is one of our very greatest and largest assets.

Read more here.

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