News Corp. Mulling Sale Of Struggling Mobile Content Properties

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News Corp. Mulling Sale Of Struggling Mobile Content Properties

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News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) may shed the ailing Fox Mobile Group, including the Jamba and Jamster brands, to focus on digital properties, like MySpace, reports The Financial Times.

A sale would not be a big surprise. After News Corp. acquired the company in two separate chunks from VeriSign (NSDQ: VRSN) for a total price tag of $381 million, it failed to do much with the asset. Last year, it created the Fox Mobile Group to roll out a new video service for smartphones, which was rumored to be akin to Hulu, but that project has been delayed several times. In addition, the group has been decimated over the past year, by layoffs and a mass executive exodus that led to the departure of the CEO, COO and CMO.

Bankers say Zed, a Madrid-based mobile content company, is the most likely buyer, but others point to Italian mobile media company Buongiorno (BIT: BNG), Dada.net, and Flycell, or even carriers, like Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) and Telecom Italia, as possibilities. In this environment, a sale could be tough. The mobile content industry is not as strong as it once was, and has struggled as consumer tastes have shifted away from ringtones and wallpapers to more sophisticated devices that run applications.

Revenues for News Corp’s ”Other” segment, which includes the Fox Mobile Entertainment, dropped 20 percent to $2.4 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009, The Financial Times reports. At the same time, operating losses at News Corp’s ”Other” segment widened to $363 million from $84 million in the year-ago period.

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Tricia Duryee

@triciad Mar 10, 2010 5:53 PM ET

Photo: Fox Mobile Group

Posted In: Mobile, Companies, News Corp., Fox

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fernando dandrea

Italians companies are actually very active in the content field, the people there is just crazy about mobiles in general and Mobile Content in particular - the revenues have been rising since 2000 when the very first services came by… it is actually nice to see the trends, for those interested the Politecnico di Milano has a yealy basis research on the topic, the last report was launched in late 2009 and is called “Mobile Content & Internet: nothing is as it used to be!”, here: http://www.osservatori.net/mobile_content/rapporti/english_report_2009
we will surely keep on seeing these market movements by the those guys ...

Spike

She was a lousy PR person, one of the worst public speakers I have ever seen. She keeps getting board seats though…

RJ

RE Lucy Hodd. Executive Director, CTM Institute of Communications Technology Management at University of Southern California….is not a glamor position. It’s a dead-end, non-profit, save-face job for failed executives with connections.

She might have been an effective PR person (pretty face…) in a very structured environment, but lacked business savvy and deep intel to manage an emerging business where market size knowledge and high level of tactical execution is needed. “mobisodes”...come on?!?

Tricia Duryee

@Guest: You are right, it probably doesn’t include all of Fox Mobile, which includes Jamba, Jamster (also called Fox Mobile Distribution); Fox Mobile Entertainment, which handles licensing content to third parties for mobile; and the Fox Mobile Studios, which is the creative side that develops original mobile content. I just didn’t separate all those things out.