• by Wayne Friedman , August 9, 2007

Fox Interactive Media, led by its major MySpace property, reported that it had its first full year of profitability, with $10 million in operating income.

Fox Interactive pulled in $550 million for the year--$50 million more than the company projected. For the fourth-quarter fiscal period, Fox Interactive doubled its revenue to $183 million and took in $30 million in operating income.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., who participated on the conference call, said MySpace is on pace to pull in $800 million in revenue in the fiscal year 2008.

Recently, MySpace grew its unique monthly users on average by 1.5 million per month. Murdoch also noted that MySpace has added 2 billion in page views on average--recently reaching a big 4.3 billion in one month.

Murdoch touted the recent proposed deal to buy Dow Jones & Co. for $5.6 billion as a major asset that will reap benefits from News Corp.'s worldwide marketing machine. He said the prestigious financial publisher would greatly help News Corp.'s new Fox Business Channel, which will launch Oct. 15 with a minimum of 31.5 million subscribers.

Business news channel competitor, NBC Universal's CNBC, has a long-term editorial deal with Dow Jones in which it can use its reporters and editors on air. The contract expires in five years.

Murdoch said the deal only applies to business news. "There are lots of other things we can associate ourselves with," he said, but didn't elaborate.

He told investors the valuation of the Fox Business Channel will exceed $4 billion quickly--which, he noted, is the current value of NBC Universal's CNBC.