Media conglomerate News Corp. Ltd. on Friday said it has formed a new Internet division to create an online hub for its Fox news, sports and entertainment programing.
The debut of Fox Interactive Media comes just three months after Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch's impassioned plea to the newspaper industry to explore new distribution technologies or risk losing the news franchise.
Fox Interactive Media will house News Corp.'s existing sports, news and entertainment Web sites. The company also plans to make "strategic investments" to bolster existing properties.
Ross Levinsohn, senior vice president of Fox Sports Interactive Media, was named president of the new Los Angeles-based division.
Bert Solivan, vice president of news information at Foxnews.com, was named executive vice president of Fox Interactive Media.
News Corp., like much of the media industry, has struggled to find new ways to reach the next generation of news and entertainment consumers, who are more likely to switch on their PCs or cellphones rather than stay glued to the living room television.
Media observers have noted that many viewers preferred live online broadcasts by Time Warner Inc.'s America Online of the recent Live8 music concerts in early July to raise awareness of poverty in Africa over the ad-cluttered MTV cable television and ABC network TV broadcasts of the event.
Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.
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