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)…

MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA) CEO Judy McGrath says the Viacom unit’s organic growth is “great,” despite its continued signs of weakness as detailed last week in parent company Viacom’s Q4 earnings. The company was hit by the soft ad market as well as lower sales of Rock Band bundles. In…

MySpace has begun rolling out 30-second audio ads, as the News Corp (NYSE: NWS). site continues its shift from a general social network to an entertainment showcase. The ads are being powered by CBS-backed TargetSpot. A rep for TargetSpot told paidContent that MySpace Music will place the audio ads alongside…

Mike Lang, the EVP of biz dev and strategy at Fox, and one of the key forces behind putting the Hulu deal together, is leaving the company after six years, paidContent has learned and confirmed. His last day is tomorrow, and he is leaving to “look for new entrepreneurial opportunities,”…

News Corp earnings were up across the board, as the company swung to a profit of $254 million ($0.10) in Q4, reversing $6.4 billion loss. The company said this reflected double-digit growth at its “majority business segments.” Even the newspaper/information segment was up, gaining 29.5 percent over last year’s period.…

		EPS*	Rev. vs Q408	Net Inc. vs Q408
News Corp.	Release		10.3%	97%

* vs. Analysts' Estimates: Beat Met Missed

The social gaming phenomenon may be commonly associated with Facebook - but MySpace seems keen to get its own slice of this growing pie. Asked at the Midem music conference in Cannes whether the site may consider a move in the area, MySpace CEO Owen van Natta, also former COO…

That didn’t take long. News Corp (NYSE: NWS). COO Chase Carey, a veteran of the Fox entertainment operations, is putting his own stamp on the company’s cable and TV programming. Rich Battista, who rejoined News Corp. to oversee all national Fox to cable programming in fall 2008, is the odd…

So much for any hopes Setanta had of raising money from a sale to Fox Cable Networks in the U.S. Instead, Fox is launching its own HD premium soccer channel, Fox Soccer Plus. Sub-licensing of Barclays Premier League and UEFA Champions League to Setanta for its Setanta Sports USA is…

Fox Sports International, a division of News Corp.‘s Fox Networks Group, is looking to secure key rights from or buy outright the operations of Irish sports broadcaster Setanta Sports for an undisclosed sum, according to separate reports from the Irish Times and Multichannel News. Heavily reliant on private equity and…

If I were a gamer, I’d probably be a lot more excited by being one of the very first to play the highly anticipated BioShock 2, set for sale next month, and I was most honored to be shown my way around the game by developer Jesse Attard. (Not so…

News Corp.‘s divestment on the digital side continues in earnest: first Photobucket, then Rotten Tomatoes. Now paidContent has learned that News Corp (NYSE: NWS). has offloaded its lesser-known Digital Publishing Group to VantagePoint Venture Partners, with Fox retaining a stake in the venture. The group develops and manages content management…

News Corp.‘s digital unit is continuing on its non-core asset sale plan: first Photobucket to Ontela, and now comes the sale of popular movie reviews site Rotten Tomatoes, to Flixster. As was the structure with the sale of Photobucket, News Corp (NYSE: NWS) unit IGN Entertainment, which owned RT, will…

Update: That “brief” extension turned into an all-nighter for *Time Warner* Cable, which is still negotiating with News Corp (NYSE: NWS) and Scripps on behalf of itself and private cable operator Bright House. Check our comments for a taste of what they face if deals can’t be reached and Fox,…

It’s time for that annual New Year’s Eve tradition—the one that doesn’t involve party hats or watching the ball drop in Times Square. Remember last year’s fun with Viacom (NYSE: VIA) and Time (NYSE: TWX)  Warner Cable? The cable operator, now separate from Time Warner, stars in the sequel, this…

Leadership of the Fox Mobile Group is in disarray, as the CEO, COO and CMO have all left the company, mocoNews has learned. Fox Mobile has also recently conducted a deep round of layoffs in Berlin, where it had major operations, with as at least 70 people losing their jobs…

While ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) have been grabbing headlines for their online local sports expansions, Fox Sports Net has been rolling out the soft launch of a dozen local sites over the past couple of weeks. So quietly that it took an alert reader to clue me…

Twentieth Century Fox is going social to promote its upcoming film, AVATAR, by partnering with TypePad owner Six Apart, to launch branded blogs and micro-blogs. AVATAR fans can get branded themes for their blogs, as well as trailers, behind-the-scenes clips, and news updates about the film, which launches in about…

Online video represents only a small piece of the total advertising pie, but the growth in streaming ad revenue is becoming more of a threat to the broadcast medium that supplies most of the high CPM content. Hulu is a case in point, as Mediaweek and paidContent sources point out…

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has partnered with app developer Spot411 to launch FoxPop, a new computer and iPhone app that syncs up with content on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, to create a more interactive experience. Users download the free app, and it “listens” to the film’s content, serving…