Murdoch upbeat on advertising and the economy

Posted by Nestor Bailly on October 6, 2009 at 11:57 AM

During the Q&A session at a conference in Tokyo, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch expressed optimism at the upturn of television and newspaper advertising markets and commented on News Corps' widely-known plans to begin charging for online content this year, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Asked whether television and newspapers can recoup ad revenue lost to the internet, Murdoch replied, "Yes, we're seeing something of that in Australia and in the U.S. It may be that [internet advertising] has become something of a secular trend, but we are seeing newspaper advertising coming back, though not yet to its previous levels," and that "television is still the strongest way to advertise."

Although some industry experts claim that the beginning of the upturn is minor and only significant vis-à-vis the decline of the previous months rather than a genuine increase in spending, Murdoch seemed confident in the improvement of the advertising market and in general of the world economy.

"I subscribe to the general consensus, which is that we might get a little bump now. But after that, we might be in for a very flat time, and for a number of years." Still, he said, it's easier to be more optimistic about the U.S. than for economies like that of the U.K.

"It may be four years away, or three years, but [the U.S.] will bounce back. I've often been right on these things, but sometimes wrong on the timing."

Regarding paid content, he confirmed plans to start charging for access to News Corp properties' content: "We're making huge efforts to seek support all over the world [from other industry players] for charging for news online," Mr. Murdoch said. "It costs us a lot of money to gather it...joining forces, even with the competition, will allow us to find a cheaper way of charging for access in the long term."

Source: Wall Street Journal