Earlier this week, Rupert Murdoch did a 37 minute interview with Sky News about why he thinks Google and Microsoft have been “stealing” content from The Wall Street Journal through their news websites. He said he has a problems with companies that simply “pick up everything and run with it [2:13-2:15 in the embedded clip]” and “steal our stories.”

Because of this Murdoch said he wants to cut off Google News from linking to The Wall Street Journal articles. His logic is that he would rather have less visitors that actually pay than have millions of visitors that do not pay.

I read an article by TechDirt that points out all of Rupert Murdoch’s companies that simply “pick up content and run with it.” The Wall Street Journal is an excellent example. Below is a screenshot of one of the sections of The Wall Street Journal website:

It is not just The Wall Street Journal that links to tons of content that other people produce. FOX News does it with their Politics Buzztracker. AllThingsD regularly links to other stories in a section called Voices. News Corporation also owns IGN which has many websites that “steal” content from other websites such as RottenTomatoes. And I am sure that there are many other examples.

The fact of the matter is that there is original content writers out there. Sometimes people get lucky by being the first to publish breaking news and the rest of the time they are stuck with reporting content that other people produced. But as long as you keep producing the news and making sure that you have solid profit margins, then your publication business will prosper.

When you do a Google search using keywords on business or web companies, it is likely that you will find articles by TechCrunch, Mashable, Pulse2, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal on the top pages. This is because Google favors these online publications for providing users with valuable content. We benefit from people doing these searches and finding our websites and so do all the other blogs out there. That means more ad revenue for us. The more hits you get on the web, the more money you make. Its a simple formula. If Rupert Murdoch wants to remove The Wall Street Journal from Google, so be it. Thats less competition for us.

Personally I think it is an idiotic move for the WSJ to cut themselves off from Google since they supposedly receive 25% of their traffic from the search engine. However Murdoch would rather have a smaller amount of paid traffic than a larger number of people looking at content for free according to the interview. How will people find it if they don’t know it exists? Will cutting yourself from the world make people just give in and pay? It is highly unlikely because more people are starting to get their content online than pay for it. If you don’t believe me, ask someone that works for your local newspaper. I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan and The Ann Arbor News basically went out of business. The Ann Arbor News cut off the circulation to only Thursday and Sunday and changed their name to AnnArbor.com. Some of the staff members at The Ann Arbor News were absorbed into AnnArbor.com and the rest were laid off.

People may argue that they are willing to pay for content online assuming it is credible journalism. The Wall Street Journal has been a household brand for well over a century now so that proves that they are credible. But they started in a time when the invention of a computer was just a dream. Welcome to 2009, Murdoch. Its going to be a bumpy ride for print companies.

In August 2008 Google filed a report with the SEC that their $900 million investment in MySpace “may be impaired.” MySpace made the Google search engine the default for the search engine. Last week, MySpace executives Rupert Murdoch, Chase Carey, and Dave Devoe reported that MySpace fell short of traffic targets.

This means that MySpace will not be paid the full amount by Google. It is likely that MySpace will lose $100 million of the deal, making it an $800 million deal. The loss might be even greater than $100 million. It could even be $300 million according to one of the executives.

MySpace isn’t the only deal to go slightly sour by Google in recent times. Google sold back 5% of their ownership in AOL back to Time Warner. Google bought the 5% of equity for $1 billion and sold it back for $283 million.

Chase Carey has been the President and CEO of DirecTV since December 2003.  This past week Carey stepped down from DirecTV and joined News Corporation to replace Peter Chernin.  At one point, News Corp. even owned 34% of DirecTV.  When Carey joined DirecTV, he left News Corporation.

To find a replacement for Carey, DirecTV formed a director committee.  As a temporary replacement EVP of Legal, HR, and Administration Larry Hunter has become the interim CEO of DirecTV.

“Chase has been an important advisor and a close friend to me for several decades,” stated Murdoch. “I know that his leadership, strategic capabilities and more than 15 years of experience at our company will prove invaluable as we face the challenges and opportunities before us.”

[via LA Times]

News Corporation has announced that they have hired former CEO of AOL, Jonathan F. Miller to head the company’s digital media properties. This includes MySpace.com, the social network that News Corp. acquired for $580 million in cash.

This reorganization is taking place at News Corp. President Peter Chernin is stepping down. Miller will also oversee IGN Entertainment, Photobucket, Hulu, and Jamba.

“Our focus moving forward is twofold: to enable our digital businesses to flourish as individual entities and to bolster the digital strategies of our core media properties by treating them as central to, and not separate from, the enterprise,” stated News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Miller had previously worked at Nickelodeon International and at NBA Entertainment.

Last summer, it was rumored that Jonathan Miller was the top choice for becoming the next CEO of Yahoo! before they chose Carol Bartz. However due to a non-compete agreement that Miller had with parent company of AOL, Time Warner, he was unable to be selected.

[via NYT]

Daily Fill
News Corporation (NASDAQ:NWS) has a web incubator called Slingshot Labs.  One of the results from the incubator is Daily Fill, a gossip and entertainment blog.  In January alone, DailyFill had about 1.3 million unique visitors during the beta release.  News Corp plans to use the DailyFill to compete with Time Warner’s TMZ and independent blogger Perez Hilton.  The Daily Fill is covered with Photos, News, Celebrity Gossip, and blog posts.  The DailyFill opened out of Beta a few days after Nick Denton’s Defamer blog was rolled into Gawker.com.

Chernin’s Departure
Recently Peter Chernin, head of News Corp’s Fox film stepped down after 12 years.  This left Rupert Murdoch in a compromised position.  Especially when Slumdog Millionaire walked away with 8 Oscars this past weekend.  Slumdog was made by Fox Searchlight.  Murdoch indicated before that he was interested in his children running the company one day.  But there are many other contenders.

Below is a list of Murdoch’s direct reports:

1. CFO, David DeVoe
2. General Counsel, Lawrence Jacobs
3. Global Marketing/Corporate Affairs, Gary Ginsberg
4. Fox Film, Jim Gianopoulos and Tom Rothman
5. Fox News/Fox Business Channel/TV Stations, Roger Ailes
6. Fox Network/Entertainment Cable Networks/RSNs, Tony Vinciquerra
7. News Corp. Europe/Asia, James Murdoch
8. Myspace/FIM, Peter Levinsohn
9. News America Marketing/NY Post, Paul Carlucci
10. Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, Les Hinton
11. Harper Collins,  Brian Murray
12. News Limited, James Hartigan
13. Government Affairs, Michael Regan
14. Human Resources, Beryl Cook
15. Content, Anthea Disney

Who will fill in for Chernin, best known as being Murdoch’s number two?  Maybe we’ll see a reality show on FOX to determine the next executive.

[via VentureBeat, BI]

Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of News Corporation (NYSE:NWS.A) spoke up on his stance about Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO).  Murdoch affirmed that his company is very unlikely going to partake with any activity on working with Microsoft to make a deal with Yahoo!  Murdoch also said that he doubts that Microsoft will end up making a deal with Yahoo!

“There won’t be a deal. There are bad personal feelings,” stated Murdoch. “In six months, Microsoft will walk away.”  Murdoch and Yahoo! CEO, Jerry Yang have a similar stance.  There are bad feelings between Yahoo! and Microsoft.

“I think handing over the company to Carl Icahn for the express purpose of hoping he can negotiate a complex deal with Microsoft is a big mistake for shareholders,” stated Yang when talking to the WSJ. “This is particularly true since Icahn has no plan B and therefore will have no leverage and will be dealing with Microsoft from a position of weakness.”

“And then what will shareholders be left with? A weakened, Icahn-controlled Yahoo,” added Yang.

Earlier there were countless rumors going around that Microsoft is working with News Corp. and Time Warner to work out a deal with Yahoo!  This news confirms that News Corp. is not interested.

Related Links:
1. Wired
2. AllThingsD