Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch and the LA Times: fact or folly?

There are fresh rumors that Rupert Murdoch wants to buy the flagship newspapers of America’s second and third biggest cities. This would give him a giant footprint in the country’s three biggest markets — but it still doesn’t make business sense.

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The Daily is laying off 50 employees, yanking some original content

Rupert Murdoch’s struggling iPad newspaper The Daily is laying off 50 of 170 employees and also implementing other cost-saving measures, including decreasing opinion and sports coverage. The changes will help the publication “be more nimble editorially,” editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo said.

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paidContent turns 10: A brief history of digital media

Remember when Friendster was the hot social network, publishers doubted that ebooks would ever sell, and Netflix (s NFLX) thought DVDs in red envelopes was the future? We do — that was that state of digital media when paidContent launched in 2002.

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The end of convergence? Perhaps for News Corp

Rupert Murdoch’s resignation from News Corp’s UK publishing boards – part of the company’s separation in to two companies – suggests dreams of a converged, multimedia power player may never come to pass.

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Virtual life on the line, The Daily launches WKND

News Corp.’s digital tabloid The Daily has been on borrowed time since it was an idea, given enough resources by Rupert Murdoch to launch but no guarantee of longevity. But Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo says reports that time may be running out are wrong.

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The Murdoch media tour: Spinning the spinoff

Super Bowl winners head to Disney World; moguls with a new corporate agenda go on a media tour. Following the formal announcement early Thursday morning that News Corp. will split up publishing and media/entertainment, Rupert Murdoch covered all the bases. Here’s what he had to say.

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News Corp. split would create 21st Century Fox

Newspapers built the foundation that became News Corp. but the bulk of the money comes from the entertainment assets Rupert Murdoch bought or launched. If Murdoch gives in on splitting the company, what would a 21st Century Fox look like?

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Why investors might buy a News Corp publishing spinoff

News Corp’s share price is soaring as investors cheer reports that the giant company is planning to spin off its $8 billion publishing division. News Corp analysts we talked with, not surprisingly, like the idea of a restructured News Corp — but interestingly, they’re also optimistic about the prospects of a stand-alone publishing corporation.

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Rupert Murdoch Under Oath

News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch spent more than six hours this week answering questions — or not — in front of the Leveson Inquiry. But the story is far from over.

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James Murdoch faces Leveson (but will he remember?)

It’s Murdoch week at the Leveson inquiry — hours of viewing pleasure for snarky dart throwers as first James Murdoch and then his father Rupert (Wednesday at 10 a.m. London time), take center stage at the hearings on “the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians.”

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Should the NYT charge for early access to the news?

Should the New York Times charge hedge funds or large financial institutions more for early access to market-moving stories like its Walmart exposé? Reuters blogger Felix Salmon says yes, but doing this would fundamentally change what the New York Times and its journalism are all about.

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Is it good for journalism when sources go direct?

New York Times media writer Brian Stelter says the ability for sources to “go direct,” as Rupert Murdoch has done with Twitter, is a generational shift in the media industry. But is it a good thing or a bad thing for journalism and news consumers?

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Murdoch shows he doesn’t understand how content works

News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch’s comments about piracy reinforce the sense that the billionaire media and entertainment mogul doesn’t understand how content works in a digital era, and that he is continuing to try and impose the scarcity that media companies have had in the past.

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Netflix is about to discover that Britain bites back

Netflix wants to recover from a disastrous few months by launching in the U.K. and Ireland — but the company will have to overcome many obstacles to achieve success, not least competition from broadcasters who have very different priorities from their American counterparts.

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For the lulz: Have we traded protest for performance?

The turmoil created by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has pulled back the curtain on the cosy relationship between politicians, police and the media. But those who are angriest seem reduced to stunts — hacking websites and throwing pies. Is this really the best we can do?

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Where to watch the Murdoch testimony live online

Members of the U.K. parliament will be grilling Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch about the phone hacking scandal today, and they will surely also have some tough questions for Murdoch’s former News International executive Rebekah Brooks. The full-length testimony will be streamed online.

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Why the chaos in media might be a good thing

Everywhere around us we see evidence of chaos in the media industry. So what can be done about this state of affairs? Media analyst Clay Shirky says that it might actually be a good thing, because it will spur experimentation. Let’s hope he is right.

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Did Twitter kill a newspaper? Of course not

Even after a string of revolting revelations, the closure of Rupert Murdoch’s scandal-plagued British tabloid, the News of the World, has come as a major surprise. But the social media bandwagon is already claiming — wrongly — that it should be seen as a victory for Twitter.

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How Glenn Beck wants to disrupt cable

Glenn Beck is back: The controversial TV pundit is launching his own online TV network this week, promising to relaunch his daily TV show in September on the Internet. However, GBTV won’t be free: Subscribers will have to pay between $5 and $10 per month.

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Why Did SeeSaw, Britain’s Hulu, Really Fail?

British TV on demand site SeeSaw was meant to be a transatlantic rival to Hulu — but after launching last year, it has pulled the plug. The reasons? Political turmoil and competitive pressure that was exploited by rivals like Rupert Murdoch.

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Was It Google That Killed MySpace?

Most Internet analysts suggest Myspace fell from grace because it crumbled in the face of stiff competition from Facebook. But a Reuters report suggests it may have been Google that dealt the fatal blow by accident as long ago as 2006.

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Seriously, Who Would Really Want to Buy Myspace?

After cutting 500 jobs, Myspace boss Mike Jones has finally admitted that it’s time to spin off or sell the struggling social network. But Rupert Murdoch’s stubborn misunderstanding of the Internet means it is way too late for the site to make a worthwhile deal.

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Rupert Murdoch Is Right About The Daily

Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a web publisher, and author of the Digital Quarters blog. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowi…

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Rupert Murdoch — Still at War With the Internet

Billionaire Rupert Murdoch has spent the past few years misunderstanding how the Internet works, railing against its most powerful features and failing to take advantage of its potential. The News Corp. founder’s new “iPad newspaper” idea sounds like yet another example of this unfortunate tendency.

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Rupert Murdoch Admits He Can’t Compete With Google

News Corp. billionaire Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like to admit failure, but he appears to have conceded defeat in his attempts to build a competitor to Google News. Project Alesia, designed to aggregate news and distribute it via the iPad and other platforms, has reportedly been axed.

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Rupert's Paywall is Meant to Keep People In, Not Out

Estimates are that a paywall at the Times of London has led to a drop of 65 percent in online readership. But owner Rupert Murdoch may not care, because the wall is as much about keeping existing print readers in as keeping new web readers out.

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Murdoch Getting Lonely Inside His Walled Garden

In a recent interview as part of a National Press Club event, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch reiterated his belief that Google and other news aggregators are stealing his content, and his commitment to paywalls. But so far Murdoch seems to have a bandwagon of one.

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Video: Rupert Murdoch Loves the iPad, Hates Search

Rupert Murdoch, the legendary founder of News Corp., has always had a love hate relationship with the digital world. In an interview he disses Google and Search and praises the potential of iPad. The wily old fox is always great viewing. Watch and enjoy the video.

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MySpace, R.I.P

MySpace, like all nightclubs past their prime, has hit its expiration date. The recent exit of CEO Owen Van Natta is a sign of a bigger problem: News Corp’s disinterest in digital media. Rupert Murdoch has moved on to the latest shiny shiny: tablets & eReaders.

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Google Gives Publishers a Way to Close the Free Back Door

Google today announced a new program to let publishers limit the amount of paid content Google News users can access for free, a move that illustrates the growing pressures it faces to tread more lightly on the news media’s traditional business model.

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Murdoch: We May Block Google

Rupert Murdoch, founder and head honcho of News Corp. (s nws), the largest media company in the world, wants to block access…

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WSJ.com’s Third Super-Premium Tier Coming?

Murdoch’s love for newspapers is undying, nevermind the near-death throes of the medium itself, and he reads it out (literally, on the radio…

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