Is it bravado, ignorance or senility? Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman, said the other day that the media industry is on the verge of a golden age and his companies are set to benefit because people still need content. OK, I know the guy owns newspapers in Australia, The UK and the USA. As well as TV and satellite empires in the US, UK, Australia and China. But most of these are based on old media models; they are also based on delivering rubbish content aimed at the lowest levels of audience intelligence. Murdoch admitted that News Corp had been slow on the uptake when it came to new media. So, last year the company invested heavily in internet properties, including videogame and movie website company IGN Entertainment, which owns GameSpy and Rotten Tomatoes, for $650m (£365m) and MySpace.com for $580m. Not much diversity there as all four list their content as movie reviews, DVD reviews, game reviews… Oh, IDG also lists cars and “babes!” Still, as the “News” company that first put naked women on page three of England’s largest daily, then bought the venerable “Times of London” and proceeded to turn it into a travesty of what it had been for three centuries, why am I not surprised?
Murdoch quality content!
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