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News Corp is apparently working on a news app called 'Knewz'
News Corp wants to give people an alternative to Google News and Apple News. The media company that owns Dow Jones Newswires and HarperCollins is working on its own news aggregation service, reported The Wall Street Journal. The service will be called Knewz.com, and take the form of both a traditional website and a mobile app. It will draw from a variety of national outlets such as The New York Times and NBC News, as well as more partisan news sites like The Daily Caller and ThinkProgress.
Rupert Murdoch wants Facebook to pay 'trusted' publishers for content
Facebook has plans to tweak its News Feed to include more posts from friends and family and less from news publishers in an attempt to fix some of the platform's problems. Now news magnate Rupert Murdoch thinks that the social network should adopt a pay-TV model and start paying "trusted" publishers for content.
Facebook and WSJ owners are working on a 'subscription' deal
The publisher of Wall Street Journal is in advanced talks to bring articles to Facebook through a subscription model. News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said that he'd been talking with Mark Zuckerberg about how "the value of content should be recognised". Thomson said in an interview at a media industry conference on this week in Italy, that News Corp was "in the middle of negotiations with Facebook on a subscription mechanic."
Sky receives takeover bid from 21st Century Fox
21st Century Fox is in advanced talks to buy Sky, a major telecoms player and the biggest pay-TV provider in the UK. Negotiations are underway and the directors of both companies have reached an "agreement" of £10.75 per share. As Bloomberg reports, the deal values Sky at £18.5 billion ($23.2 billion). Fox already owns 39 percent of Sky, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch has tried to buy the remaining slice before. A takeover in 2010 was eventually abandoned, however, after News Corporation (now known as 21st Century Fox) was embroiled in a huge phone hacking scandal.
Hulu officially announces its new CEO, former Fox exec Mike Hopkins
Hulu has had a tumultuous 2013, as it lost founding CEO Jason Kilar in January, then went through the sale process, again, before sticking with its original owners, again. Confirming last week's rumors from Bloomberg and Reuters, the new CEO is Mike Hopkins, most recently head of distribution for Fox. He replaces acting CEO Andy Forssell, who took the wheel in March after Kilar's departure. In his introductory letter to the team, Hopkins mentioned Hulu expects "close to a billion dollars" in revenue this year, along with a rising number of Hulu Plus subscribers. Part-owners Disney and News Corp (Comcast retains a stake after its purchase of NBC Universal, but can't vote) reportedly disagreed on the site's future, with Disney preferring an advertising-based approach. Appointing Hopkins as the new leader suggests News Corp's reported focus on subscriptions is taking priority, and there's speculation that Hulu will become more deeply involved in TV Everywhere authenticated viewing based on cable and satellite TV subscriptions. Hulu has long pitched itself as complementary to cable, we'll see if its apps end up looking more like the BTN2GO and Fox Now apps that Hopkins' team at Fox worked on.
Roku takes $60 million in funding, wants to be the front end for your TV
Despite its image as an underdog, Roku knows how to court some heavy hitters in the TV business: on top of a total $80 million in previous investments, it just received a $60 million boost this week. The new funding round has BSkyB and News Corp returning with checkbooks in hand, but it also includes a fresh contribution from Hearst, which wants Roku's help in building services for its TV channels. The media hub maker is getting more than partnerships in return, however. It's using the cash to expand its Roku Ready program, which now includes 24 hardware partners. The company's Anthony Wood ultimately wants Roku software to be commonplace -- it can be an "operating system for televisions," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. While there's no guarantee that Roku will reach that kind of ubiquity, it may well have the cash to get there.
The Wall Street Journal to launch LinkedIn-style social network
The Wall Street Journal will soon launch a business-minded social network along the lines of LinkedIn, according to a report from The Times of London. The news comes amid reports of restructuring and new financial offerings from the media giant, including a personal messaging system for investors and a newswire service called Dow Jones X. Of course, this isn't News Corp's first social network rodeo, as it had a dubious fling with Myspace that ended rather badly. Though there's no word on an exact date, The Times said it should be arriving in several months -- but we're not sure if corporate types will be high on trusting the Rupert Murdoch-helmed outfit with their personal info.
Reuters: Media exec Peter Chernin bid $500 million for Hulu
Since the sun came up today it must mean that Hulu is up for sale, again. The latest extension to the sale rumors for the video streaming site is one from Reuters citing anonymous sources that indicates Peter Chernin, a former News Corp exec and Hulu board member has submitted a $500 million bid. There's no word on how big a stake he'd be interested in taking, but that's significantly lower than the reported $1.9 - $4 billion bids received from Dish and Google when the site was up for sale back in 2011. Of course, any sale price may vary on whether or not the acquisition come content included, but either way, we'd expect a few more possibilites to pop up before something (or nothing, like last time) happens. Of course, Peter Chernin was one of the folks pushing for a shorter theater to home release window and more TV on the Xbox, both of which have come to fruition in one form or another -- maybe he can make a deal happen.
Latest Hulu rumors suggest it could be up for sale, again
While viewers enjoy promotions like free Star Trek and Kurosawa, Hulu's owners are once again considering selling the video streaming site. The last bit of news was that News Corp and Disney were considering buying one another out, but according to Reuters, anonymous sources confirm that the board is reaching out to several potential buyers while it considers its options. Another possibility from Variety suggests that the two would remain as part owners, and welcome another party to join, perhaps CBS. This wouldn't be the first time Hulu's owners tried to sell the site however, as it went through the whole process -- without changing hands -- back in 2011. Perhaps this time, with a new CEO in place, all the companies involved can figure out what they want Hulu to be going forward.
Amplify Tablet is an Android machine custom-built for education
News Corp rebranded its educational unit as Amplify in July. Since then the Joel Klein-headed company has been working with AT&T to develop a tablet expressly designed for the K-12 educational market. After months of testing the Amplify Tablet, an unspecified 10-inch Android slate loaded with custom software, is ready for its official debut. Lots of things have changed since we first caught a glimpse of the project many months ago. For one, the UI has been completely redesigned to be clean, modern and simple. The new look is much more inline with Google's Holo, with extensive use of action overflow buttons, the sharing menu and solid blocks of color-coded material. The default home page offers a grid of app icons, but it also displays student information and lists "notebooks" on the right hands side. Those notebooks deliver quick access to different subjects for students, but they also give teachers direct links to materials for their classes, categorized not just by subject, but also by period. Klein and company don't stop at simple organizational tools and reference materials, however. %Gallery-180689%
Hulu part-owners Disney, News Corp. reportedly discuss buying each other out
The new owner of Hulu could turn out to be... one of the existing owners. After an aborted sale attempt in 2011, new rumors suggest current part owners Disney and News Corp are talking over the possibility of one buying the other's stake out. The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg both tag people with knowledge of the situation as their sources, indicating a disagreement over the video streaming website's business model -- it announced $695 million in revenue last year -- as a reason for the talks. Reportedly News Corp. prefers a subscription based model, while Disney sees an advertising-focused approach as best. Both of them own about a third of the site, while Comcast / NBC Universal owns most of the remaining third but can't vote, and according to the rumors would remain as a minority investor if a buyout took place. Also playing into this is CEO Jason Kilar's announcement he will leave the company by the end of Q1, so hopefully any decision on its future are made by the time a new leader is in place.
The Times UK offers digital newspaper subscriptions with subsidized Nexus 7
While News Corporation's big tablet newspaper experiment, The Daily, may have ended with a whimper, it's not stopping the global media company trying new strategies to pick up more (paying) digital readers. The Times, one of the only UK national papers to keep its content firmly behind a paywall, has decided to offer a discounted Google Nexus 7 tablet alongside its digital subscriptions. Knocking £149 from the original £199 price of the 32GB Nexus 7, the device will arrive accompanied by an 18-month subscription with access to the full site and its mobile apps, costing £18 per month, discounted to just shy of £300 in total if you're willing to pay it all upfront. However, it's not the first time we've seen a news organization fold in a gadget incentive for new subscribers -- Barnes and Noble offered discounted Nooks alongside one-year subscriptions to The New York Times at the start of the year. UK readers can check out the deal at the source below.
News Corp. to shut down iPad-based newspaper, The Daily
News Corp.'s experiment with the newspaper of the future is coming to an end. In a press release covering a wide range of corporate restructuring initiatives, the media conglomerate announced that it is closing The Daily, the tablet-only newspaper that launched with much fanfare in early 2011. Though a "bold experiment in digital publishing," the venture was not "sustainable in the long-term," explains News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch in the press release. Publication of The Daily will halt on December 15. Remaining assets and some staff of the iPad-based magazine will be folded in to the New York Post. The digital newspaper had approximately 120 employees after laying off staff earlier this year. [Via AllThingsD]
News Corporation shutters The Daily tablet newspaper as of December 15th
News Corporation's The Daily was to have been a vanguard of the future, based on the past -- a tablet-focused newspaper that could get us back to paying subscriptions for our regular news fix. Not enough of us were as enthralled with the retro-future concept, however. While CEO Rupert Murdoch calls The Daily a "bold experiment," he's shutting the publication down as of December 15th following sluggish growth that didn't match long-term expectations. The move may pay off for other divisions. As part of a larger spinoff of its publishing wing headed by Robert Thomson, News Corp is moving the all-digital outlet's resources and some of its staff (including Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo) into the considerably more paper-bound New York Post. In some senses, it wasn't hard to see a shutdown as a possibility. While Murdoch is more than a little fond of paywalls as an alternative to free, ad-based viewing, The Daily was counting on building a paid readership completely from scratch in a web-based era -- it's hard to compete with free.
News Corp launches Amplify educational unit, with help from AT&T (video)
In light of recent scandals, it's hard not to see this as a bit of image rehabilitation, but we'll do our best to take it at face value. News Corp is bringing its 18-month-old educational division to the fore by rebranding it Amplify and teaming up with AT&T to put tablets in the hands of students. The unit will focus on developing products and services tailored for classrooms, ranging from kindergarten through high school. And, at the center of that ecosystem, will be the Amplify Tablet (which, judging from the video below, appears to be a modified Galaxy Tab). Videos, encyclopedia entries, books and even remote tutoring apps will all be just a tap away. The tablets will get their first trial run in the US during the 2012-2013 school year. With the phone hacking scandal behind him, former New York City school chancellor Joel Klein (who headed up News Corp's internal investigation), is free to focus on getting Amplify rolling and into classrooms across the nation. Before you head off, make sure to watch the clip from AT&T after the break.
Next Issue Media launches on Android, $15 a month for access to 32 magazines
If you've taken issue with your usual choices for buying magazines on your tablet, be it pay-per-issue or per-subscription, you're not alone. If you'll recall, it was nearly a year ago that Next Issue Media launched the preliminary version of its "Hulu-meets-magazines" app on the Galaxy Tab, and it's finally ready to release this physical newsstand alternative officially. After raking in a slew of deals last November, its Android 3.0 app is now available -- users can fork over a monthly fee of $10 to access all of its monthly and bi-weekly content, while an extra five bucks adds in weekly content, essentially giving you access to every publication on offer. Singular subscriptions are also available for two to 10 bucks, and you'll currently have a choice of 32 mags from the likes of Car and Driver to The New Yorker. Interestingly, TechCrunch notes that NIM plans to get the app over to iOS "soon" -- it'll surely be interesting to see how it competes with Apple's own Newsstand. You'll find more info at the via links below, and you can flip over to the source for details about a 30-day trial offer.
Sky TV to offer cable access via broadband in the UK
Unlike its unflinching US equivalents, News Corp-owned Sky TV is readying its service for availability via broadband, rather than solely through traditional cable box delivery. The company announced plans today to bring a mixed on-demand/pay-per-month streaming service to the UK in the coming months -- a move we've yet to see made on this side of the Atlantic from any major cable provider.Sky's first step is competing with the likes of Netflix and LoveFilm with an on-demand video service, as well as a pay-per-month unlimited option. And that service is set to expand not long after the initial "first half of 2012" launch time frame, with sports and entertainment offerings said to be coming "soon afterward."What does any of this have to do with gaming, you wonder? Well, silly, Sky TV is offered via both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and the plan going forward is to continue that support on "a wide range of connected devices, including PCs, Macs, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, games consoles and connected TVs." It's unclear how currently available apps will be affected, but we'll assuredly see more from the UK TV provider as we move through the first half of 2012.
Sky Anytime+ achieves impossible, will carry iPlayer (and ITV Player)
Sky's burgeoning Anytime+ VOD platform is getting a hefty boost today. It was previously open only to customers who also hitched to Sky Broadband, but that restriction's being gently relaxed: opening it up to all five million Sky+HD box owners. It's also somehow sweet-talked deadly rivals BBC and ITV into letting their offerings onto the platform -- with ITV Player arriving tomorrow and iPlayer slated for arrival later in the year. Head past the break for the official line while we sit here and grumble about the company buying up all the UK rights to Mad Men and charging a kings ransom.
Newscorp app adds Fox, IGN, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News to Xbox 360 in 2012
Microsoft's Craig Davison had some surprise news during the company's CES 2012 keynote this evening, bringing out word that Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp is developing an application for the Xbox 360. Several Newscorp content providers will be pushing out news and commentary via the free application, including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and IGN. Beyond "2012," Davison didn't allow any more specific a date to slip out.
Microsoft bringing Comcast Xfinity TV to Xbox 360, nails down News Corp. partnership
Microsoft told us not to expect a heck of a lot of news from its 2012 CES keynote, but it just took the wraps off of a couple of content partnerships. For one, we're told that Comcast's Xfinity TV will soon be coming to Xbox 360 (FiOS users are finally getting a little company, as it were), and moreover, there's a new News Corporation partnership that'll bring Fox News, Wall Street Journal, Fox and IGN to the aforesaid console. Craig Davidson, Director of Xbox, also threw a verbal high-five to U-Verse, Telus and Telefonica. No word on launch dates, unfortunately, but we're guessing the parties involved will be making their own announcements on that.
