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Home Front: Politix
Murdoch: White House criticism of Fox increasing ratings
2009-10-17
News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said on Friday that White House criticism of commentators on his Fox News television channel had served to "tremendously" increase their ratings.
Perhaps the WH ought to shut up and read between the lines here.
"There were some strong remarks coming out of the White House about one or two of the commentators on Fox News," Murdoch told the annual meeting of News Corp. shareholders here.

"And all I can tell you is that it's tremendously increased their ratings," he said.

Murdoch's remarks came after White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told The New York Times earlier this week that Fox News was "undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House."

Murdoch also restated his plans to begin charging readers of News Corp. newspapers on the Web. Currently, only the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal charges subscribers online.

"We intend to charge for our content on the Web," Murdoch said. "As I've said many times in the past good journalism comes at a price.
Due to the lack of "good" journalism, people would rather not pay and stick with the bad journalism.
"In the future successful newspapers will charge for their content and aggregators will largely be excluded," he said.
Looks like 18-year olds with hidden cameras will be in demand soon.
The News Corp. chairman was also asked about the attitude of the Obama administration towards business.

"We're worried about the business climate and whether it will discourage the formation of new companies," he said.

"There is a public perception, certainly, that this government is anti-business," he said. "I'm not saying it's a correct perception but there is a perception and I think this perception is hurting the economy.
Your non-denial speaks volumes.
"We think the outlook for the economy is probably pretty steady," he added. "My own view... is that we're not going to get another vast steep decline but nor are we going to get any steep increase."
Why no steep increase? Isn't it about time? Try lynching those who set off this recession and see what happens. [Sorry for the unsanctioned use of your reserved word, Al.]
Posted by:gorb

#10  Maybe Murdoch should look at what has made FOX successful and apply it to his print media.

'course I have to pay a subscription for FOX News....
Posted by: Skunky Glins****   2009-10-17 21:56  

#9  The only way the White House can beat Fox News and the Internet is to shut them down Chevez-style. They will try. We must not let them.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon   2009-10-17 12:47  

#8  Just to be clear, if cnn weren't on at every airport tv, newsweek at every dentist office, and nyt dropped at every hotel, these business entities would have ceased to exist decades ago.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2009-10-17 12:20  

#7  "...White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told The New York Times earlier this week that Fox News was "undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House."

Just what does she think the "Legacy" media was doing to the Bush White House? This is simply more whining by people completely out of touch with average citizens.
Posted by: WolfDog   2009-10-17 12:11  

#6  USA Today trid that and folded.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2009-10-17 12:00  

#5  We had too many grocers, and supermarkets came along.

We had too many retailers, and big box discounters came along.

Just about every industry has consolidated over the last half-century, for the simple reason that each industry had too much capacity. Steel. Autos. Ship-building. Timber. Airlines.

Now it's the turn of newspapers. We have too many news venues. Too many sources of news. They're going to be consolidated, and we can thank the internet.

Why should I buy news from my hometown big news vendor when I can hop the web and find news anywhere? The hometown newspaper was supposed to be an exclusive, or at least semi-exclusive, aggregator of news (Murdoch is particularly humorous when he tees off on 'aggregators'. What does he think a newspaper is in the first place?). Because of time, distance and production costs, a model that was viable fifty and one hundred years ago no longer is viable.

Fifty years ago if I wanted sports I read the hometown paper (or the Sporting News). For international news I read the hometown paper (or Newsweek). Today I can go anywhere. I'm not tied to a particular vendor.

That very simply means we're going to collapse the number of vendors. Now just as the little grocery stores did with the advent of supermarkets, some small news vendors will survive because they'll occupy a unique niche. They'll vend the small-town news, the births, deaths, kids sports, and local business advertising. But most hometown newspapers are going to go away in favor of a few large, national and international news vendors that will deliver the product via the internet. The large urban newsprint will be dead as a dodo in twenty years. Even the New York Times -- especially the New York Times.

Aggregators? The surviving major vendors will BE the aggregators, just as they've always been.

They'll pay for themselves via advertising. A few might manage subscriptions the way the electronic version of the Wall Street Journal does. But that works only if the vendor delivers real value. Information indeed is finely grained. We'll pay for it when it has value, otherwise we'll look for other ways.

Murdoch is a smart man. He has to understand all this and is just blowing smoke.
Posted by: Steve White   2009-10-17 11:37  

#4  With the increasing opacity of gov't in general and this regime in particular I expect that Obama & co. will start charging for the "news" that they "develop".

Oh, wait. Didn't they already do that?
Posted by: AlanC   2009-10-17 08:34  

#3  "And all I can tell you is that it's tremendously increased their ratings,"

....which of course increases our market share and $$$$$$ free market earnings $$$$$$, which this administration could never comprehend.
Posted by: Besoeker in Duitsland   2009-10-17 01:57  

#2  I though Murdoch's agenda was changes to the copyright laws and in particular, limits on the 'fair use' provision.

Subscription is never going to fly and the only other way of getting consumers to pay is micropayments (pay per view) which never took off at the consumer level.
Posted by: phil_b   2009-10-17 01:47  

#1  In the future successful newspapers will charge for their content and aggregators will largely be excluded

Newspapers won't recover enough to be able to charge for their content and survive. The advent of the internet has placed information at the hands of everyone.

Why should I pay one thin dime for content such as business news when all I have to do it to go to the source and get and then publish the news myself?

Murdoch doesn't get it.

Information is finely grained, and not a tangible product which can be gather to be sold.

As of this moment I can go to the FDIC's website and read a press release, contact a press contact for a few quotes in their press office and then a local banking contact for a local angle, and then voila!

I have a local news story I can release on my website. I have violated no copyright laws and I have done nothing Murdoch will not be doing.

The difference is that I can take readers and eyes that read advertising from his site because my information is free and his isn't.
Posted by: badanov   2009-10-17 01:02  

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