FT.com / By industry / Media & internet - News Corp may spend $2bn on web deals
Mr Murdoch said on Wednesday he did not expect to spend more than $1bn in total at the moment, but if opportunities came up could allocate a further $1bn. He said he was in “very advanced negotiations to buy a controlling interest in a wonderful search engine,” but did not elaborate.News Corp, which on Wednesday reported strong growth in its filmed entertainment, television, cable, satellite broadcast, newspapers and book publishing businesses, expects the internet to be an engine of future growth. To this end, Mr Murdoch said the recently established Fox Interactive Media division would become a stand-alone unit.
Mr Murdoch, who has a reputation for accurately spotting future media growth trends although has in the past made losses on internet ventures, has visions of using the extensive content from his studios and television businesses to build a “distinctive interactive network” that will “redefine the portal”.
Not sure what to make of this. Do people even still use the word "portal?" You'd think Rupert's gums would still be bleeding from his last dance with the IntarWebs, but apparently the success of Google and Yahoo! (and not the failure of Lycos, Go.com, AOL, Excite@Home, etc, etc) has triggered some sort of autonomic pen-to-checkbook response in the old man.
Or perhaps China has asked him to "buy the internets" so he can remove all the pro-democracy, free Tibet nasties from it for them.
