Murdoch Makes Noise At Media Summit

Murdoch. News Corp. Emperor. Empire. You read those terms and you think, “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that’s about right.” The latest news out of Rupert’s money machine - besides the $100 million siphoned out to each of the kids – shows that the company has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

News Corp is going to be paying extra close attention to the company’s most recent additions, Myspace and IGN Entertainment, to bring its valuable media assets to the mobile universe.

This is a sensible move for the company, as big growth is hard to come by when you’re huge and your name isn’t Google, Inc. But whether the move will work out as wonderfully as the Australian magnate has predicted could be more far fetched than any rebukes he’s made to accusations about his political ties he’s fastened in the past decade.

Murdoch stated this week that he expects 10% of News Corp’s business to be done through his internet acquisitions by 2012. The company expects to generate the income necessary to achieve that goal by being one of the first media channels to bringing real choice in mobile entertainment. It plans to experiment with the delivery of shows the MySpace generation is most interested in, namely things like “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.”

Granted that many of the markets News Corp invests in today are capable of bringing rich content via 3G or better connections to mobile users, and will continue to get faster and cheaper, there are few barriers that can hinder Murdoch from making good on his word.

Video delivered to one’s phone isn’t a new idea at all. The technology is nearly everywhere in the East, and it’s spreading to the rest of the world quickly. China is leaping straight to 4G, starting with a rollout in Shanghai. On the other side of the world, Americans can enjoy Sprint TV, clips streamed through Verizon’s V Cast service, and there are least two MVNOs, Helio and Amp’d, which provide similar packages to their customers.

Instead of making a splash, however, News Corp will slowly work its way into networks, first the carriers the company is closest to, then the rest, one by one. If the demand is there, complete saturation will be quick. If not, the company will probably have to downgrade the 10% figure its founder stated at the 2007 Media Summit in New York, but as mobile media becomes more palatable to consumers and the cost of data transfers comes down (inevitable), things will start to look rosy again for Mr. M.

Of course, there’s a good chance the company will take a big hit when the first moves are made, making investors unhappy and Murdoch’s critics ecstatic. But News Corp is certainly not going away, and its quick and well-timed venture into the online world has allowed the company to recoup most or all of purchase cost of Myspace and IGN already.

Rupert will need to keep his eyes on ebb and flow of internet-based trends, however. Hits aren’t known to last forever. Myspace is certainly not as resilient a force as Google or Yahoo!, and IGN is really just a minor player in online media. Video will indeed become a main component in the mobile sphere in the years ahead. Few are debating that presumption. But people might turn out not to want what News Corp sells.

Who’re we kidding? What’s timeless if not The Simpsons?