Online Purchase Gives Murdoch Male Audience
News Corporation has secured the purchase of American online gaming firm IGN Entertainment, securing access to around 28 million male internet users, with sites covering video games, films, music, sports, cars and girls.
The purchase, worth $650 million, sees IGN fold into News Corp’s Fox Interactive Media Unit, extending Rupert Murdoch’s online activities to around 70 million users a month, with the corporation now producing a staggering 12 billion pages of content each month.
Explaining the reach of the new acquisition, Murdoch said in a statement: “With the acquisition of IGN and its 28m unique users, we have gone a long way toward achieving two of our key strategic objectives in our efforts to become a leading and profitable internet presence.
“By acquiring IGN and its compelling sites, we now have top entertainment sites to go along with FOXSports.com, as well as our myriad news sites, headlined by FOXNews.com.”
The deal sees News Corp take control of sites such as GameSpy, AskMen.com, Rotten Tomatoes, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, 3D Gamers, Direct2Drive, GameStats.com and IGN FilmForce, securing a wide range of men’s interest locations.
The move continues Murdoch’s drive to extend his company’s internet presence, an area in which it has lagged behind the competition for some time. Earlier this year News Corp scooped web community Intermix Media for $580 million, as well as sports news network Scout Media for $60 million.
The spending spree has not gone unnoticed by those in the media or business worlds, with American business expert Doug Richard stating at the Edinburgh International Television that News Corp’s purchases mark a sea change in media owners’ attitutes to new technology.
The technology guru, and star of BBC Two’s Dragon’s Den, claimed that radical changes are on the horizon, both in broadcast technology, and the companies seeking to exploit it (see TV Tech Given A Roasting In The Dragon’s Den).
“If you follow the money then there are lots of firms acquiring technology companies when they never have before,” he explained.
“News Corp is looking to buy Blinkx, a video search engine, for $4 billion cash. For a firm which has yet to make a nickel, that’s a pretty good markup! When News Corp becomes a buyer of technology, then something is definitely shifting.”
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