News Corporation is preparing to spend up to $US1 billion ($1.3 billion) to further expand its internet business, which chairman Rupert Murdoch yesterday nominated as the global media group's top priority.
Mr Murdoch said News, owner of The Australian, had tens of billions of dollars of value in its news, sport and general entertainment businesses.
"While we monetise this value daily in the form of our TV shows, films, books and newspapers, our priority now is to perfect a plan that will monetise them across the world on the internet," he said.
News last month spent $770 million buying US internet group Intermix, which owns the MySpace.com social networking site and about 30 other sites. Last week it bought US sports content site scout.com for $US60 million.
Mr Murdoch revealed News was now in talks to buy a small internet search engine and was developing its own mass entertainment website.
"It's a yet-to-be named general entertainment site. We have Fox sites now but they are more promotional in nature for films and products - this is a big entertainment site that encompasses the whole industry," he said. News had also tried to buy the voice-over-internet software group skype.com but its founders did not want to sell.
While News might spend up to $US1 billion on a series of "modest" investments, Mr Murdoch said it did not intend spending "tens of billions".
"This is something we want to grow," he said.
But Mr Murdoch said there was "no greater priority" for News than to "meaningfully and profitably expand its internet presence and to properly position the company to benefit from the explosion in broadband usage that we are now starting to see".
"Our commitment to this space will constitute a major part of the company's growth, profits and asset building over the next several years," he said.
Mr Murdoch said News would combine its content with consumer choice to "redefine the meaning of the internet vertical".
News planned to buy or develop a "full army of web tools" so users could personalise their internet experience. "We can go deeper with more resources than virtually anyone else, and we plan to exploit that advantage, not only editorially but also in the lucrative local ad market," he said.
Media Man Worldwide is part of the Media Man Group of companies aka Media Man. Media Man is primarily a media, publicity and internet portal development company.
