News Corp rendered asunder

Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae

‘Should the world break and fall about him, its ruins will strike him unafraid’. Rupert Murdoch’s world can, without a great deal of exaggeration, surely be said to breaking and falling about him right now. After months of very public airing of dirty laundry, ranging from phone hacking to bribes at the highest levels of society and government, News Corporation could no longer survive in its current form. Though hidden away, nestled in the hills of the South of France for a short time, the news did not escape Zeitgeist’s notice. The empire, which The New York Times reports as being valued at $54bn, will be split into (increasingly unprofitable) newspapers on one hand, entertainment (movies, TV, cable and publishing) on the other. Murdoch said the split would “simplify operations”, though usually that phrase tends to be used as reasoning for when companies merge, rather than disintegrate.

On a personal note, when working a short stint at 20th Century Fox Film several years ago, it was interesting to see the News Corp dynamic at work. Publications like The Sun were a great place for the company to have articles generated concerning subject matter of the upcoming summer blockbuster we were trying to market. At the same time, emphasising the symbiotic relationship of the corporation, a message came down from up high that one of the team’s proximate objectives in the short-term was to shore up and direct eyeballs to The Sun, even at the expense of our own goals. Such a quid pro quo will no longer be necessary in the future.

About these ads