murdoch calls summit for web plans

Murdoch calls fresh summit for web plans

Andrew Edgecliffe Johnson / London September 08, 2005

Rupert Murdoch has summoned his most senior executives for the second summit in seven months on News Corporation's internet strategy. The broadcasting and publishing group’s executive committee will gather this weekend near Murdoch’s ranch in California.

The summit comes as Murdoch received an important show of support on Tuesday from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Company.

The Saudi prince, a long-time shareholder, converted his non-voting shares in News Corp to a 5.46 per cent stake of the voting shares and said he might buy more “if the situation warrants”.

The summit is understood to involve members of News Corp's large executive committee, which meets only rarely, as well as outside speakers.

Since the first gathering in February, Murdoch has spent $580 million on buying Intermix, which operates social networking site My-Space.com, and bought Scout Media, a sports website company.

He is reported to have held talks to buy Blinkx, a video search engine. Although no big deals are expected to be announced at the US gathering, it will be seen as a sign that Murdoch is eager to accelerate the company’s internet investments.

The summit in New York in February marked a distinct change in strategy for Murdoch, who had cooled on internet investments after initial enthusiasm in the late 1990s when his son, James, was in charge of the group’s new media strategy.

He warned this year that media groups had to reinvent themselves to meet the demands of the “iPod generation”, which was bypassing traditional suppliers by consuming news and entertainment online.

Murdoch's strategy was given a symbolic boost by the announcement by Prince Alwaleed, who expressed his “utmost confidence in Murdoch, his management team and his succession planning”.

In another development, Murdoch said he had earmarked up to $2 billion for internet acquisitions.

He said he did not expect to spend more than $1 billion in total , but if opportunities came up could allocate a further $1 billion.

News Corp on Wednesday reported strong growth in its filmed entertainment, television, cable, satellite broadcast, newspapers and book publishing businesses.Murdoch also said the recently established Fox Interactive Media division would become a stand-alone unit.

The move signals that no deal is imminent between Malone and Murdoch, who has wanted to try and gain back some of the voting shares in order to secure his family's control over the media group. The family currently has 29.5 per cent of the vote in News Corp.

News Corp has been in the limelight in recent weeks following the unexpected resignation of Lachlan Murdoch, Murdoch's eldest son, from his executive duties at the company. Lachlan had often been identified by Murdoch as his potential successor at the media empire he built up.

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