The Saudi billionaire whose investment firm is one of the biggest stakeholders in News Corp said he is looking for expansion opportunities with the media giant, in the lates indication that his appetite for growth remains robust as the company retrenches.
The incredible global success of James Cameron's "Avatar" has prompted analysts to lift earnings estimates for News Corp., who owns 20th Century Fox. It's rare for a single movie to affect a media conglomerate's bottom line so much, but the film's $1.1 billion at worldwide box offices has done just that for NWS.
After threatening to pull stations from Time Warner cable systems (in which News Corp sought as much as $1/month per Time Warner Cable subscriber for rights to Fox), News Corp reached an agreement with Time Warner Cable over subscriber fees, ending the conflict.
News Corp. agreed to subscribe to up to 49 million new registered shares in Sky Deutschland AG via a capital increase that is expected to raise about 110 million euros.
Avatar, from News Corp's 20th Century Fox Studio, had the biggest December opening weekend of all time, just beating the $77.2 million of I Am Legend's opening weekend. The film is the first to be shot completely in 3D, and is thus expected to spur future industry growth.
News Corp, which has been in talks to acquire MGM, is having second thoughts, balking on terms MGM has set for potential buyers. MGM, burdened by $4 billion in debt, put itself up for sale last month.
India's fifth-largest IT company, HCL Technologies, announced a five-year deal with News Corp to manage its data centres and IT across UK newspapers like The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times.
According to Dow Jones, News Corp may finalize a deal later this week to buy a stake in Rotana Media
Lachlan Murdoch, the elder son of News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, reported selling roughly $28 million in company stock, as his investment firm plans to purchase a stake in an Australian radio broadcaster.
As a result of the recent struggles of the advertising industry, News Corp has been forced to turn to McKinsey & Co., a consulting firm that many companies in the advertising industry have turned to in their time of need
News Corp announced its Q1 2010 operating results, reporting a net income of $571 million and revenue of $7.2 billion
Analysts believe that busiesses in the media industry are a smart buy for any investor, as they expect the advertising industry to bounce back. An example of the media industry's bouncing back in Q3 comes from NWS, whose stock has risen at least 35% this quarter.
Hulu, which is co-owned by News Corp (along with NBC Universal, Walt Disney Co. and Providence Equity Partners), has not been doing well as an ad-supported site, so it is looking into other ways to make money, including possibly charging customers for its services
News Corp plans to examine Comcast Corp's possible deal to take over NBC Universal to see if opportunities present themselves, but it is not involved in any active talks. GE is currently in talks with Comcast over a possible deal that would give the cable company a controlling stake in a deal that would give them an interest in the NBC broadcast network, the Universal movie studio and theme parks
News Corp is in talks with Fujitsu, Sony, LG Electronics, and Samsung, possibly sounding out potential partners to rival Amazon.com Inc's Kindle electronic read
News Corp. replaced Wyeth on the S&P Indexes
News Corp. is restructuring its Asian broadcast business to significantly elevate the profile of its STAR India business. Its Asian broadcast business will be segmented into STAR India, STAR Greater China, and Fox International Channels.
New Corp's film Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, has now grossed $667 million in theaters outside the U.S. making it the third-highest grossing film in international markets. This makes New Corp a formidable film company, challenging the likes of Pixar for supremacy in the animated film industry.
News Corp's News America plans to sell $1 billion worth of 11-year and 30-year bonds, as a sign of ongoing improvements in credit markets.
News Corp announced it would close thelodonpaper, its free evening newspaper in London, as the company continues to face monumental difficulties amid the global recession
To cut costs NWS announced it will lay off 400 MySpace employees, or about 30% of the staff in an attempt to return to a "start-up" culture.
NWS's revenue declined by 16% during the quarter because of slumping ad sales. However, the company earned $1.04 per share, compared to most estimates of $0.16.
NWS reported a $6.4 billion loss in Q2 2009 primarily because of poor performances in the filmed entertainment, television, DBS, and book publishing segments. The company especially suffered from severe drops in advertising revenues, a trend that it expects will continue through the end of FY 2009.
On August 5th, 2008 News Corporation released their fourth quarter earnings results. The company earned $1.13 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter, an increase of 27% from the same period in 2007. Their results beat analysts' expectations and gave shares a boost. The company cited DVD and newspaper sale increases as the source of their earnings growth.
On May 6th, 2008 News Corporation reported earnings for its third quarter operations. The company reported revenues of $8.75 billion, an increase of 16%. The earnings call did however downgrade the expected yearly earnings of the Fox Interactive Media (FIM) division, which includes social networking site MySpace.com as well as other interactive media outlets. The company had previously expected revenues from this division to be $1 billion for the year, but said that the division will likely miss this target. Concerns over advertising revenues within this division prompted the downgrade in their expectations for total revenues from this division.
News Corp announced the acquisition of Beliefnet, the most popular US religious Web site. The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but News Corp's stock rose on expectations that the new site would be effectively employed as a promotional outlet for the company's religious media content.
