News Corporation, the media behemoth headed by Rupert Murdoch, has released its financial results for the first quarter of the financial year. The company which owns News Limited in Australia revealed that revenues were up on the previous corresponding quarter to US$1.148bn, from 1.062bn; and its traditional operating areas of publishing had grown from $118m to $178m.
However, News Corp buries its digital media results in a section entitled ‘other’ which principally is used to disguise the ongoing losses it suffers from digital assets such as Myspace, the white elephant it bought for over $US500 million back in 2005. It’s not trying very hard to hide the losses at the moment, singling the social networking wasteland out for a beating.
“The Other segment reported a first quarter operating loss of $156 million, $30 million greater than the prior year. This decline was primarily due to lower contributions from the Digital Media Group, principally stemming from lower search and advertising revenues at MySpace. These declines were partially offset by improved operating results at our international outdoor business.”
In spite of Myspace’s recent re-launch, the company’s chief operating officer has given News Corp’s strongest indication that Myspace might find itself the unloved runt permanently kicked out of the News Corp digital litter before too long.
Chase Carey said in a conference call discussing the results; “We’ve been clear that Myspace is a problem. The current losses are not acceptable or sustainable. Our traffic numbers are not going in the right direction. We need to make real headway in the coming quarters.”
Considering that Myspace may be beyond help as a business, Tone Deaf would like to put in our offer for it with Rupert Murdoch now. How about $20 and a couple of the promo CDs we have in the office which no one wants?
