Danwei’s mentor Rupert Murdoch is talking about China again, and this time he’s on about new media.
According to a report on the Australian website of The Advertiser (which Murdoch’s News Corporation owns):
News Corporation now sees new media as one of its best strategies to gain a foothold in the Chinese market, chief executive Rupert Murdoch has said.
The article goes on to suggest that Murdoch’s recent selling of his stake in Phoenix TV and his apparent retreat from the China market will now be replaced with a push into China’s Internet business.
News Corp, which has had mixed success with its TV channel in China, has been hamstrung by a mercurial regulatory environment.
In June, it sold off a stake in a Chinese broadcaster, marking the latest retrenchment by a major media firm as western companies realise that quick returns are unlikely to materialise any time soon.
“We’re going to … attempt to get in through new media, MySpace, things like that, to get a foothold there,” Mr Murdoch says in an interview with US television journalist Charlie Rose to be broadcast today on his PBS program…
…In June, News Corp said it planned to expand MySpace into 11 other countries and eyed China and India as growth areas for the long term.
Murdoch has already been dipping his toes into the Chinese Internet. In April this year, Danwei reported that FOX Cable Networks helped CCTV to design and launch “an updated and revamped English website”: CCTV and Fox launch boring website.
So a move into the Chinese Internet has has undoubtedly been considered at News Corp HQ for quite a while already.
Nonetheless, in this time of irrational Internet euphoria 2.0, at Danwei we feel compelled to say to our mentor:
Welcome to the snake pit Rupert.
- The Advertiser:
New media ‘the way into China’
- Danwei: The Fall and Rise and Fall of Danwei’s Mentor, Rupert Murdoch
- Danwei: Murdoch retreats, China Mobile advances into TV
- Image from IT.anhuinews.com (Chinese): Murdoch’s long held dream comes true (about taking over DirecTV)