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Murdoch's Sky takeover blocked by UK competition watchdog
Rupert Murdoch has been blocked by the UK's competition watchdog from completing a full buyout of Sky. The media tycoon, which already owns 21st Century Fox and a range of newspapers including The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun, launched a £11.7 billion ($14.6 billion) takeover bid in December 2016. If successful, it would give the Murdoch family full control of Sky News, as well as the company's extensive TV, internet and phone businesses in the UK. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) rejected the idea, however, due to "media plurality" concerns, or how much power the resulting company would have over public opinion.
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.
Disney buys Fox's studios and cable TV channels for $52 billion
After weeks of rumors, the deal is done -- Disney will buy up large chunks of Rupert Murdoch's Fox media empire for $52 billion. The list of what it won't take is shorter: the Fox News cable channel, broadcast networks and Fox Sports, which are expected to spin off as their own business. The Disney conglomerate adds the Fox movie and TV studios (including big-name franchises like X-Men, Avatar, Alien and The Simpsons), majority control of Hulu, FX cable networks and $13.7 billion in debt. On top of that, Fox is attempting to acquire the parts of UK's Sky that it doesn't already own, and if that's successful then Disney will get it too.
Europe clears 21st Century Fox's purchase of Sky
21st Century Fox's £11.7 billion acquisition of Sky has edged a little closer to being a done deal today, as the European Commission approved the merger. The commission was assessing any potential competition concerns that might arise from the marriage of huge media company and pay-TV provider. It concluded that as the two firms "are mainly active at different levels of the market," the acquisition wouldn't have any significant impact on competition. It wouldn't be good business for Fox to withhold its films from Sky's competitors, for example, or for Sky to worsen its platform by carrying Fox's content exclusively -- not to mention regulations and existing contracts in countries where Sky operates prevent that kind of thing from happening anyway.
Ofcom to investigate Sky and 21st Century Fox merger
The UK's media regulator will investigate a proposed merger worth £11.7 billion ($14.6 billion) between 21st Century Fox and Sky. Speaking in the House of Commons, Karen Bradley, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said she had referred the matter because of "public interest considerations" which "warrant further investigation." These include media plurality -- the need for citizens to have access to a variety of independent news sources -- and a "commitment to broadcasting standards." Ofcom has 40 days to investigate and deliver its report, which will undoubtedly shape Bradley's decision to approve or block the deal.
21st Century Fox is buying UK's Sky in $14.6 billion deal
Following talks last week, 21st Century Fox has agreed to buy Sky, the UK's largest pay-TV network, for £11.7 billion ($14.6 billion). The UK-based pay-TV broadcaster and broadband provider counts nearly 22 million subscribers in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. That'll give Rupert Murdoch a delivery platform for his 20th Century Fox movie studio and Fox TV network, along with cable TV channels like FX, Fox Sports and National Geographic.
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.
Rupert Murdoch out, son James in as Fox CEO
The Murdoch dynasty continues at 21st Century Fox as the company announced today that Rupert Murdoch's son, James Murdoch will take over as CEO beginning July 1. The elder Murdoch will join his other son Lachlan Murdoch as Co-Executive Chairman. Rupert announced he was stepping down as CEO less than a week ago. Placing James in charge isn't a surprise, he has been pushing Fox into the digital era with a heavy focus on streaming. In a joint statement the brothers said that they were, "humbled by the opportunity to lead, with our father and the talented team of executives at 21st Century Fox, this extraordinary company." [Image credit: Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez/AFP/Getty Images]
Rupert Murdoch's exit as Fox CEO hints at a bigger digital future
There's a big executive shakeup looming that could change the digital media landscape in the long run. Both CNBC and the Wall Street Journal report that Rupert Murdoch is planning to step down from the CEO role at 21st Century Fox, with his son James taking the reins. The media mogul will still hang around as an executive chairman (along with his other son Lachlan), like he does at News Corp, but he won't be so closely involved in day-to-day affairs. The handover would take place no later than 2016.
Fox tried to buy Time Warner -- and HBO -- for $80 billion
Could Fox News and CNN have the same owner? No, but close. 21 Century Fox has confirmed reports (first published by the New York Times) that it made an $80 billion bid for fellow media conglomerate Time Warner -- and was turned down, for now. Curiously, this comes just as Comcast is trying to swallow Time Warner Cable, but those two similarly-named companies are no longer directly connected. Time Warner (also no longer related to AOL, which owns this website) recently ditched its Time Inc. magazine properties, and now consists of three parts: the highly-profitable HBO, Turner and Warner Bros. According to the reports, Fox would sell CNN as part of the buyout to avoid regulatory hurdles caused by owning both large news networks, but as analyst Porter Bibb pointed out on Bloomberg TV, this would give it access to HBO, which he called "the only Netflix fighter left." [Image credit: Helen Sloan/courtesy of HBO]
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.
BBC iPlayer comes to Sky+, Hell reports incoming frost
The BBC and Sky may represent polar, warring opposites of the broadcasting business, but that doesn't mean their technology platforms can't get along. Following a promise made all the way back in January, internet-connected Sky+HD boxes will be able to access BBC iPlayer from today. The service has been integrated into Sky's world-class program guide, with users even able to plump to catch available shows in high definition. The announcement also let slip that 4OD, the last remaining holdout to the service, will be added in early 2013. If you've yet to hook your Sky box up to the internet, you just need an Ethernet cable or wireless adapter -- but let's hope for your sake they aren't at opposite ends of your house.
Sky bags exclusive rights Warner Bros. movie catalog, makes LoveFilm and others wait
Sky has bested its broadcast and video-on-demand rivals by signing a deal with Warner Bros. for exclusive rights to its films in the UK and Ireland. Once the six-month cinema window has elapsed, each new flick (including Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises) will remain Murdoch-only for a full year before arriving on LoveFilm and its kind. Meanwhile, back-catalog titles like The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix will remain locked in the partnership's walled garden for an undisclosed period of time. Good news if you're a Sky customer, we suppose, and not if you're not.
The Daily to cut 50 staff members, switches to vertical-only layout
All Things Digital's Peter Kafka is reporting that The Daily expects to tell 50 of its 170 employees that they're being laid off. Of those positions, 29 were full-time staff members. The Daily's Editor-in-Chief Jesse Angelo said sports coverage will be handled by content partners, such as Fox Sports, and the standalone opinion section will be eliminated. The Daily launched with a great deal of fanfare 18 months ago originally on the iPad. It quickly added other editions as well, but never got subscriptions much beyond 120,000. It had dropped below 100,000 subscriptions by its first anniversary in February. Earlier this month we reported comments from Angelo suggesting to staff that they ignore "the haters" and pay no attention to rumors about troubles at the digital publication. All Things Digital reports The Daily will continue to try and save money by going to a portrait-only layout, instead of the current version that can also be read in a landscape orientation. It plans to keep releasing its new weekend edition. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Is The Daily on thin ice?
The Daily, the heavily-promoted news publication for mobile devices, may be on life support, according to a report in today's New York Observer. I took a look at The Daily a few months after launch and found it pleasing to look at but not something I would spend money on. There are solid free news offerings from places like Slate, and aggregators like Flipboard and Zite which have a lot more content and can learn my interests over time. The Daily launched in early 2011 as an iPad-only publication, later adding an iPhone edition and one for the Samsung Galaxy Tab. A large staff was brought in to do original reporting, but there are persistent reports that the enterprise is losing about $30 million per year. In February we learned that The Daily had 100,000 paid subscribers. The Observer reports today, based on internal sources, that The Daily has been put 'on watch', and whether it survives will be determined after the November elections. Reviews in the app store are pretty lukewarm, with a lot of complaints about the number of ads in a publication that people have to pay for. Subscriptions are $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year. There is a free version of the app with a selection of a few stories from the full edition. The Daily was a bold experiment, but it may not be a compelling enough offering to sustain itself. Update: The Editor of The Daily, Jesse Angelo, in a carefully worded denial, responded to the stories about the online newspapers reported problems. You can read his response here.
Fox, Warner, SanDisk and Western Digital's Project Phenix: promotes DRM, misspelling
Studios Fox and Warner Bros. have teamed up with SanDisk and Western Digital to create "Project Phenix." Beneath the orthographically offensive name, it's pitched as DRM that'll permit you to organize, move and watch high-definition content on more than one device. It's the brainchild of the Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA), which has ensured compatibility with UltraViolet, so that users will be able to download cloud-based media to compliant WD and SanDisk storage -- to play on any alliance-approved TVs, tablets and display devices. We'll see the technology available to license later in the year, which promises to render content ten times faster than streaming media on "over the top internet" (translation: streaming services). Yes, there's PR after the break, but we'd only suggest taking a look if you've got a good pair of waders.
The Daily celebrates a year with 100,000 paid subscribers on iPad
One of the iPad's first regular periodical publications (if not the first one) The Daily launched a year ago. It's been a fairly rocky year. Originally, the Rupert Murdoch-funded app hoped it could get at least half a million subscriptions to keep its publication going; a few months ago we heard that there were 120,000 daily readers, and now Mashable says the paper boasts 100,000 paid subscribers. Despite not nearly reaching its original goal, The Daily still seems to be rolling on. Publisher Greg Clayman says that when the app originally launched, the goal was to make an experience unique to the tablet. That's why The Daily began only on the iPad and has only recently added content on the Android platform, via the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Clayman says that while the company has kept its choice of platforms slim, The Daily has been delivering on its promise to break news; it was the first to report on the story of Paula Deen having diabetes and Alec Baldwin wanting to run for mayor in New York. Clayman says that The Daily is still headed for profitability "over the next couple of years," which he says is actually better than most traditional publications. The Daily might not have the readership that it hoped to have, but a year into its existence Clayman seems optimistic about the publication's future. "We now have a fully baked, fully functional app CMS, and a large, engaged readership," he says. "A year ago we were asking how to build the boat. Now it's about understanding the best way to steer the boat."
The Daily averaging just 120,000 readers per week
News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch introduced the iPad newspaper The Daily (free) almost eight months ago with expectations that the paper would easily meet the half-million subscribers required for the publication to break even. Now Bloomberg is reporting that The Daily is well behind that goal, with an estimated weekly circulation of only 120,000 readers. The Bloomberg post cites advertising exec John Nitti of Publicis Groupe SA as saying that the 120,000 reader figure is for unique weekly visitors, which also includes readers who are taking advantage of the paper's two-week free trial. As a result, the actual number of paying subscribers is less than the total readership figure. After the free trial, The Daily is available for US$0.99 per week or $39.99 a year. Nitti thinks that 120,000 readers is still a respectable number for The Daily, and expects that his client (Verizon) will continue to advertise on the paper. Bloomberg notes that The Daily is expanding beyond the iPad, adding a Facebook version this month and an Android edition within the next three weeks.
Specific Media buys MySpace, already has one friend named Tom
To be honest, we weren't entirely surprised to hear rumors back in February that News Corp. was looking to hand off MySpace -- after all, most of the luster seems to have left the once-mighty social network, and Rupert Murdoch's time these days is pretty full running a media empire and saying things in an Australian accent. Word got out this week that the site has landed firmly in the hands of the broadly-named Specific Media, a digital ad network that apparently couldn't get together a cool $19.1 billion for the first-place Facebook. According to rumors, the company scored MySpace for the rock-bottom price of $35 million, a fraction of the $580 million its predecessor paid a half-dozen years ago. No word on whether Murdoch's electroclash band will continue to use the service to promote its gigs.
