News Corp Ltd

The low-key Fox movie executive who shepherded the offbeat Oscar winners "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Juno" was put in line Thursday to become Rupert Murdoch's No. 2, spearheading his News Corp. media empire in Hollywood and on Wall Street. Peter Rice, a publicity-averse executive at Fox adept at turning quirky films into mainstream commercial hits, was tapped by Murdoch to run the Fox television network.

News Corp. has concluded that the best strategy to succeed in providing online movie news and information is to get out of it. The media conglomerate led by Rupert Murdoch on Monday sold Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review aggregation website, to fast-growing user-generated review site Flixster Inc. News Corp. acquired Rotten Tomatoes as part of IGN Entertainment, which it bought in 2005 for $650 million. Under the terms of the all-stock deal, News Corp. will get a minority equity stake in 4-year-old Flixster and a nonvoting seat on its board.

The most ambitious attempt by television companies to retain their audiences on the Web begins today, and the early reviews are surprisingly good. Hulu.com, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., will launch with many episodes of hit NBC and Fox shows and a small sampling of movies, all with one-quarter the commercial minutes of regular TV.

The first big media showdown of 2010, which threatened to break out in war, ended with a peace treaty. After weeks of posturing and mudslinging media campaigns, an agreement was reached Friday afternoon that will keep News Corp.'s Fox television stations and several of its cable channels on Time Warner Cable systems in Los Angeles and nationwide. The deal was struck less than a day after the previous contract expired, averting a potential public relations disaster for both companies.

Murdoch Plan Probed: The Australian Broadcasting Authority has launched an investigation into media mogul Rupert Murdoch's plan to buy 15% of Seven Network Ltd., one of the nation's three commercial television networks. Sources said the watchdog group is most concerned about Murdoch News Corp. Ltd.'s relationship with another big investor, Telstra Corp. Ltd., the government-owned operator of Australia's largest telephone company, which plans to take 10% of the network.

The company that brought TV viewers racy and irreverent programs such as "Nip/Tuck," "Temptation Island" and "The Simpsons" has found religion. In the biggest commitment of its sort by a Hollywood studio, News Corp.'s Fox Filmed Entertainment is expected to unveil plans today to capture the gargantuan Christian audience that made "The Passion of the Christ" a global phenomenon.

Relinquishing his status as heir apparent in one of the world's most powerful media dynasties, Rupert Murdoch's elder son abruptly resigned as deputy chief operating officer of News Corp. on Friday, raising questions about who will eventually take the reins of the family-controlled conglomerate. The departure of the 33-year-old Lachlan Murdoch, who was being groomed to succeed his father, appears to signal the ascendancy of Murdoch's younger son, James, 32, who runs News Corp.'

Rupert Murdoch is facing a public outcry and regulatory scrutiny over his reported plans to buy control of Australia's domestic news agency and tighten his grip on the nation's main newsprint maker. Murdoch's News Corp. Ltd., which already is Australia's biggest media company, reportedly is seeking to double its holdings in Australian Associated Press by purchasing a 40% stake now held by John Fairfax Ltd. That also would increase News Corp.'

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch has agreed to retake control of the embattled New York Post from controversial tycoon Abe Hirschfeld, Murdoch's News Corp. Ltd. said Sunday, signaling what may be the end to one of the most bizarre takeovers in the nation's newspaper history. The agreement, signed by Hirschfeld and Murdoch, would transfer the tabloid Post from Hirschfeld to a News Corp. unit.

General Motors Corp. on Monday divested Hughes Electronics Corp. through a spinoff and sale of Hughes stock to News Corp. for $3.1 billion in cash, plus News Corp. preferred shares, giving Rupert Murdoch control of the biggest U.S. satellite TV service. GM distributed one share of Hughes common stock for each share of GM Class H common stock, Detroit-based GM said in a statement. GM also sold its 19.8% stake in Hughes to Murdoch's Sydney, Australia-based News Corp.

News Corp.'s Fox TV stations and several of its cable networks remained on Time Warner Cable systems as executives from the two companies negotiated late into the New Year's Eve night on a new contract that would prevent the signals from going dark. Representatives for both sides indicated that negotiations, which had been taking place over the last three days in a conference room on Fox's Century City lot, were cordial. Signaling that headway was appearing to be made, the two companies agreed to a three-hour extension of the contract after a midnight deadline passed on the East Coast.

With only hours to go until their current contract expires, News Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. were still trying to hammer out a new deal for the cable system operator to carry News Corp.'s Fox TV stations and several of its cable networks. The likelihood of a new accord before today's midnight deadline appeared to be quickly diminishing, and the possibility was increasing that millions of Time Warner subscribers could see Fox shows disappear from their TV screens. On Wednesday, News Corp.

Don't panic if you're watching Fox's New Year's Eve special and the screen goes black moments before host Carmen Electra finishes screaming "Happy New Year." There's nothing wrong with your TV. You're just caught in a brawl between two media giants. At issue are the fees that News Corp., Rupert Murdoch's sprawling media empire, is demanding that Time Warner Cable pay for transmitting its Fox stations -- including KTTV-TV Channel 11 and KCOP-TV Channel 13 in Los Angeles -- as well as cable networks such as FX, Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket.

Starting at midnight Dec. 31, Time Warner cable customers could find themselves without Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Ducks, UCLA and USC television coverage, thanks to a fee dispute that escalated Friday. Time Warner and News Corp., which owns the Fox stable of channels, have been unable to renegotiate the carriage agreement that runs out at the end of the year. If the impasse is not resolved, local subscribers not only would be without much of the entertainment programming on Channel 11 -- including new seasons of "American Idol," "24" and "House" -- but also Prime Ticket and FS West, home to L.A. sports teams, including the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers and Angels.

Escalating the battle between traditional newspapers and online news providers, media mogul Rupert Murdoch lashed out at Google Inc. and other Web companies Tuesday, accusing them of looting news articles and contributing to the industry's decline. "There are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production," Murdoch said at a Washington forum on the future of newspapers. "Their almost wholesale misappropriation of our stories is not fair use. To be impolite, it's theft."

Emphasizing a major shift in strategy, News Corp. all but conceded Wednesday that its once-dominant social network MySpace is no longer competitive with rival Facebook or micro-blogging service Twitter and will seek to rebuild the site around entertainment. News Corp. said MySpace -- whose 2005 acquisition was once considered so pivotal that it landed Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch on the cover of Wired magazine -- has undergone layoffs and a massive restructuring but continues to lose revenue.

In an 11th-hour move, two Rupert Murdoch-controlled companies have made a $1.8-billion bid for MGM/UA Communications Co., which was slated to merge with a smaller Australian company in two weeks. MGM/UA said that its directors will meet today to consider the offer, made jointly by News Corp. Ltd. and Fox Inc., the parent of rival film studio 20th Century Fox Film Corp. MGM/UA has been asked for a decision within 24 hours, according to one executive familiar with the bid.

The Dow Jones industrial average might be up for sale by its owner, News Corp., a move that conceivably could result in a name change for the 125-year-old stock market barometer. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that News Corp. was considering selling its stock index business and had reached out to potential buyers. News Corp., which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, declined to comment. Dow Jones & Co., which News Corp. acquired in 2007, offers thousands of stock indexes that are used as benchmarks by investors and licensed for use by mutual funds and other investment products.

As newspapers across the country struggle with declining readership and advertising revenue, News Corp. executives have been meeting in recent weeks with publishers about forming a consortium that would charge for news distributed online and on portable devices -- and potentially stem the rising tide of red ink. Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller has positioned News Corp. as a logical leader in the effort to start collecting fees from online readers because of its success with the Wall Street Journal Online, which boasts more than 1 million paying subscribers.