News Corp. COO: ‘Newspapers Are Like An Albatross Around Our Neck’

Rupert Murdoch may have printer’s ink flowing through his veins, as is often said of the News Corp. chairman, but for his No. 2, president and COO Chase Carey, newspapers are more like an albatross around the neck. Interviewed at the UBS Media and Communications Conference today, Carey was asked what News Corp. could do to improve its stock price. His answer was immediate: de-emphasize newspapers as a part of the overall portfolio. “We’re overly identified with the publishing business,” Carey said. “Some of the concerns that exist around publishing, we get widely associated with….The publishing business has had too wide a profile.” Carey noted that only 10 percent of News Corp.’s profits come from its publishing units, compared with more than 50 percent from cable television. “[Newspapers] are important assets, we care about them…but that’s not going to drive our future. Our future is being driven by those big, broad content platform channel businesses.” Carey was asked specifically about the impact of the $5 billion acquisition of Dow Jones, including The Wall Street Journal, a deal that necessitated a $3 billion write-down less than two years later when it became clear that Murdoch had vastly overpaid. “The deal was done in ‘07 at a point in time that probably not many deals that were done then don’t look less favorable looking back,” he replied. “It was done at a time that things were pretty close to a peak in values. This was a longer-term proposition to really develop the potential for it.” Unlike Jon Miller, News Corp.’s chief digital officer, Carey didn’t try to wave off questions about The Daily, the iPad-based news product the company is developing, by calling it “a rumor,” but he wasn’t prepared to talk about much more than the general thinking behind it. “It’s an opportunity to take advantage of these digital technologies, and to create something at a very modest cost structure,” he said. “There is an advantage when you’re not trying to transition something from old media to new media. There are clearly advantages when you’re building something without any encumbrances and you don’t need to worry about distribution and returns or any of those things.” Given the reports, here and elsewhere, that The Daily has a start-up budget of $30 million, you might be surprised to hear Carey talking about modest cost structures, but it was a point he reiterated several times. “They’re small bets,” he said, referring to digital-only ventures in general. “They don’t require great capital. It’s a set of heads to produce something."

Support Canada Free Press

VIEW Comments