News Corp Puts TV Shows On MySpace For Free

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has put a variety of already screened programmes from its Fox network in the US onto his recently acquired social networking website, MySpace.com.

With an aim to building web traffic and broadening the audience for its TV shows, the programmes will be available online for free and will run exclusively for three months on MySpace.com and 24 Fox owned and operated sites.

The shows, which are mostly showing as re-runs this month in the States, will have pre-roll ads as well as ads that run between acts of the shows, although total ad time will be much shorter than during TV broadcasts.

While the details vary by show, generally each programme will be accompanied by one 15-second pre-roll ad, and one-hour shows are likely to have three ad breaks with one 30-second spot in each.

The deal marks an expansion of the ‘Fox on Demand’ initiative, which launched in August and involved streaming ad-supported episodes of various programmes to nine local Fox websites. More programmes might be added to MySpace in the future.

News International: 020 7782 3922 www.newscorp.co.uk