News Corp's digital group posts loss

Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Friday 6 August 2010 at 10:18:00

Digital unit struggles in an otherwise profitable quarter for Murdoch's
company

Despite posting an $875m (�551m) profit in its fourth quarter,
News Corp?s earnings revealed losses in
its digital unit.

The Murdoch-owned compny does not classify its Digital Media Group as one of
its core businesses and has posted the unit?s result in the ?Other? category in
its interim statement.

?Other? reported a fourth quarter segment operating loss of $174m (�110m) and
full year segment operating loss of $575m (�362m).

The unit includes social networking site MySpace, which has been struggling
against stiff competition from rival Facebook. News Corp admitted that the loss
to the Digital Media Group is principally the result of lower search and
advertising revenues at MySpace.

However, the company seems to have recognised the need for change and has
recently launched its new Times and Sunday Times web sites
behind a paywall.

The overall $875m profit for the fourth quarter marked a swing from the $203m
loss that News Corp posted in the same quarter last year when the company took
an impairment charge.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2267723/news-corp-digital-group-posts